RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Litigation filed by a North Carolina local elected official alleging House Speaker Tim Moore’s ruined his marriage by having an affair with his wife is ending, attorneys said on Monday, two weeks after a lawsuit was filed.
Lawyers for Scott Lassiter and Moore confirmed the resolution in separate emails. They said little or nothing more when asked for details, such as whether the lawsuit filed in Wake County court was being withdrawn or a settlement reached.
“We won’t be commenting on this matter further,” Moore attorney Stacy Miller said.
Lassiter’s lawsuit, which sought at least $200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, claimed that Moore “willfully interfered in the marital relationship” between Lassiter and his wife, who leads an agency within the state courts system.
Moore, who is divorced, publicly acknowledged having a “casual” relationship with Jamie Liles Lassiter but said he believed it was appropriate because she was separated. He said other claims in the lawsuit were completely false and vowed to file a counterclaim.
Jamie Lassiter wasn’t a defendant but called the lawsuit “outrageous and defamatory” and said her husband was “lashing out” at the end of their divorce proceedings.
Lassiter, a former Apex town council member and current elected member of the little-known county soil and water conservation board, also alleged that Moore and another unidentified man conspired recently to install a camera outside Lassiter’s suburban Raleigh home. Moore, who like Lassiter is Republican, said he hired no one and didn’t know who the man was.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said separately Monday that “at this time, based on a review of the complaint filed in the civil action, there are not allegations that would give rise to a criminal investigation or prosecution.”
Moore, a lawyer, has represented a region just west of Charlotte in the House for 20 years. He was elected speaker in 2015 and is now in his fifth two-year term at the post — a state record.
states through which jilted spouses can seek damages from a cheating spouse’s lover through alienation of affection and criminal conversation — also known as adultery.
The lawsuit filed June 18 accused Moore of using his position “to entice Plaintiff’s wife ... to participate in an illicit relationship with him.” The Lassiters were married in 2013.
Scott Lassiter, an assistant principal in the Wake County school system, contended that they separated in January.
But Jamie Lassiter said there had been a signed separation document for years, and rejected her husband’s allegations she wouldn’t end her relationship with Moore for fear of losing her job as executive director of the North Carolina Conference of Clerks of Superior Court.