Alan Moran appears in Hancock County Court

The former Diamondhead city councilman appeared in a preliminary hearing in Hancock County Court before Judge S. Trent Favre – and the court established that there was probable cause to send the case to a grand jury.

A Hancock County investigator took the witness stand to say that Alan Moran groped a 17-year-old while the two were on duty in a Philip’s Pest Control company truck. The teenager apparently rejected these advances and quickly phoned his father.

The young man’s parents met Moran and the teenager at Dolly’s gas station in the Kiln – at which point the father apprehended Moran, but not before the defendant threw one of his two cell phones in the woods. According to witnesses in the hearing, Moran tried to flee.

The investigator said CCTV footage at Dolly’s showed Moran attempting the escape before police arrived, and the victim’s parents backed up that claim in court.

Defense attorney Donald Rafferty called into question the credibility of a 17-year-old’s story, as there is no physical evidence that a crime occurred, per the investigator.

“I’m very limited as to what I can say. I will say on behalf of my client, we deny the allegations. We look forward to our day in court,” Rafferty said. “And we look forward to the opportunity to make sure that everybody gets the right side of the story, and gets my client’s side.”

Witness testimony suggests a pattern of abuse; a couple of days prior to the alleged crime, Moran reportedly produced a sex toy during a small party that included the victim and several other teenagers. The councilman allegedly requested that the boys use the toy, an advance they all rejected.

“We believe that there are multiple victims of Alan Moran’s criminal behavior prior to this particular victim,” Baria said. “And that the business he owned or the business he worked for knew or should have known that he was using those businesses to perpetrate these crimes and they should have put a stop to it a long time ago.”

The defense argues there is no proof that Moran touched the boy for sexual gratification.

That said, the court found that the story involving the sex toy supports testimony that the alleged crime was sexual in nature.

“This victim’s family is not the first, but they want to make sure that they’re the last victims of Alan Moran,” Baria said.