Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks told a crowd in Alabama on Monday that he voted for embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore despite multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual relationships with teenage girls.

Speaking to an event hosted by the Athens-Limestone County Chamber of Commerce in Alabama, the conservative lawmaker said he would not take questions about Alabama’s Senate race, WHNT reported.

But when Brooks opened the forum for questions, he was asked, “How can you support a pedophile?”

Brooks said in response that no one could call Moore a pedophile since no one in the room was present when the incidents that Moore is accused of happened.

“I don’t have to worry about anything else in this Senate race because today I voted for Roy Moore, that’s it,” Brooks said.

Brooks ran in the Republican Senate primary earlier to replace Attorney Jeff Sessions this year but failed to make the runoff after he faced a barrage of ads from a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Brooks endorsed Moore in the runoff primary. When stories about Moore’s actions with teen girls surfaced, Brooks defended Moore, saying the Senate needed his vote on the debt and deficit, border security, and confirmation of Supreme Court Justices.

“If I had to choose which side I’d want to take because of which side I think would prevail in a court of law, I would choose Roy Moore’s side,” Brooks said at the event Monday.

Moore has faced calls from McConnell as well as other Republicans to step aside in the Senate race.

Sen. Richard Shelby, the state’s senior senator, told reporters on Capitol Hill Monday that he wrote in the name of a “distinguished Republican” instead of voting for Moore.

Moore faces Democratic candidate Doug Jones in the state’s special election on Dec. 12.