The Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen has won a legal challenge against former US Supreme Court of Alabama Justice, Roy Moore after Cohen waved him down with a 'pedophile detector' against Moore during his comedy show. However, Moore did not take these actions kindly and sued Cohen only to be defeated in court too.
Sacha Baron Cohen Defeats Roy Moore's $95 Million Defamation Case Over 'Paedophile Detector'
Sacha Baron Cohen has won a huge legal battle against former US Supreme Court of Alabama Justice, Roy Moore, after the Borat star waved him down with a 'paedophile detector'.
Following the act, Moore launched a $95 million ($AUD 138.7 million, £78.7 million) defamation suit against the actor after appearing on Cohen's satirical TV show Who Is America? in 2018.
Moore, who is infamous for being a failed Republican Senate candidate and strongly opposes gay marriage and his public display of the Ten Commandments, had been told by producers that he was receiving an award for supporting Israel.
However, this is definitely not what happened. In fact, Cohen appeared under his character, Erran Morad, to discuss Israel's technological prowess, before showing off his 'paedophile detector'.
"It turns out sex offenders and particularly paedophiles secrete van enzyme 4D DHT, which is actually detectable," Cohen said to Moore during the segment.
"It's three times the level of non-perverts."
Back in 2017, several women accused the failed senate candidate of sexual abuse while they were teenagers and Moore was in his 30s, The Washington Post reports.
The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama denied the allegations and no charges were ever brought against him, as per The Guardian.
But these allegations were more than enough evidence for Cohen to run the episode on his show. He waived the device over Moore and it started beeping wildly.
It is reported that Moore signed a disclosure agreement before appearing on the camera, however, was not really happy with the inference and walked off the camera with an upset mood.
Moore then claimed the waivers he signed before appearing on Cohen's show were unenforceable as they had been obtained under false pretenses.
Following this he sued Cohen, but the US District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the case.
He appealed and well, lost again.
According to EW, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld the lower court's decision that the disclosure agreement was valid.
AP reports, the three judges also decided that the 'obviously farcical' 'paedophile detector' segment was 'clearly comedy' and that 'no reasonable person could believe [the paedophile detector] to be an actual, functioning piece of technology.'
But it seems like Moore is having none of it.
"For far too long the American people have been subjected to the antics of Sacha Baron Cohen," the Moore family told the Associated Press.
"His pusillanimous and fraudulent conduct must be stopped. We will appeal."
