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A New York federal judge on Tuesday dismissed failed GOP candidate Roy Moore's defamation lawsuit against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Moore, who ran for an open US Senate seat in Alabama, had claimed he was duped into appearing on Cohen's Showtime series "Who is America?" in 2018.
Moore and his wife, Kayla, argued in court documents that Cohen "falsely painted, portrayed, mocked, and with malice defamed" him "as a sex offender."
The lawsuit also alleged that Cohen's use of a disguise to lure Moore and his wife to Washington, DC, for the February 2018 interview was fraudulent.
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US District Judge John Cronan of the Southern District of New York tossed the suit Tuesday, ruling that the consent agreement that Moore signed to appear on the show prevents Moore from claiming he was fraudulently tricked into the interview.
"In light of the context of Judge Moore's interview, the segment was clearly a joke and no reasonable viewer would have seen it otherwise," Cronan wrote in his ruling.
Cronan went on, "It is simply inconceivable that the Program's audience would have found a segment with Judge Moore activating a supposed pedophile-detecting wand to be grounded in any factual basis."
A lawyer representing Moore and his wife blasted Cronan's ruling in a statement to Reuters.
"Judge Cronan's ruling makes no factual sense," attorney Larry Klayman said in a statement to the news outlet. "To the contrary, Judge Cronan's dismissal is the joke, and more than a bad joke at that."
The Moores have appealed the judge's decision.
