The speaker of North Carolina’s House of Representatives, Tim Moore, in a rare “alienation of affection” lawsuit, is facing embarrassing allegations that he convinced a local official’s wife to engage in “degrading sexual acts” in exchange for favors.

The lawsuit could prove disruptive in North Carolina’s arch-conservative legislature which has become a laboratory for conservative ideas despite the state being largely evenly divided between red and blue. 

The  highly unusual employment of the “alienation of affection” law — also known as the “homewrecker law” — is also a throwback to the Old South laws when adultery was illegal (in North Carolina, it is still a misdemeanor).

An assistant principal for the Wake County Public School System, Scott Lassiter, who is a former Apex Town Council member, alleges that Mr. Moore had been maintaining sexual relations with his wife, Jamie Liles Lassiter, for over three years.

The civil suit was filed at Wake County court at Raleigh and alleges that Mr. Moore interrupted the marriage of two college sweethearts. Mr. Lassiter contends that Mr. Moore “convinced Mrs. Lassiter to engage in degrading sexual acts with him, including group sexual activity with others over whom he had power or influence.”

According to the allegations, Mr. Moore understood that “Mrs. Lassiter hoped her acquiescence to his demands would result in Defendant Tim Moore supporting favorable action” towards the North Carolina Conference of Clerks of Superior Court, which Mrs. Lassiter represents. 

The complaint alleges that when confronted by Mr. Lassiter, Mr. Moore admitted to having maintained a sexual relationship with Mrs. Lassiter years before asking whether “on a completely unrelated note” if “there was anything he could do for” Mr. Lassiter, according to the complaint’s factual background.

Mr. Lassiter is seeking $25,000 in damages for Mr. Moore’s alleged interference in his marriage, allegations which Mr. Moore has described as “baseless.”

“We will vigorously defend this action and pursue all available legal remedies,” Mr. Moore said in a statement provided to the location news station at Raleigh, WRAL.

Mrs. Lassiter also denies the claims leveled by her husband, telling WRAL that Mr. Lassiters has “serious mental health and substance abuse issues, which I can only assume led him to file this outrageous and defamatory suit.”

According to Mrs. Lassiter, the allegations are also “impossible” because the couple has been “separated with a signed separation document for years,” adding that “the only person who has ever abused me or threatened my career was my soon to be ex-husband.”

Alienation of affection has fallen out of favor in recent years after many states adopted these laws in the 19th century. Only eight states — Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah — have an alienation of affection statute on the books.

Discussion surrounding alienation of affection statutes in recent years has mostly revolved around whether or not these laws should exist. 

In one recent case from 2017 in Alaska, a state Supreme Court justice, Joel Bolger, wrote that the legal basis for alienation of affection statutes “originated with the common-law belief that wives were the chattel of their husbands.”

North Carolina law requires that anyone bringing an alienation of affection case must prove that the defendant interrupted the plaintiff’s marriage before the spouses were separated.