Backstreet Boys band member Nick Carter is fighting back against allegations that he sexually assaulted several women over 20 years ago.
On Thursday, Carter filed a countersuit for approximately $2,350,000 in damages allegedly lost by him and the Backstreet Boys as a result of the accusations. The suit named two women: Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a former fan who sued him in December for an alleged rape that occurred on the band’s bus after a 2001 Backstreet Boys concert, when she was 17 years old and Melissa Schuman, singer of the former teen pop group Dream who accused him of rape in his apartment in 2002. He also named several anonymous, or Jane Doe, accusers in the suit.
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The countersuit was filed in Clark County, Nevada, and called both of the named women “opportunists.”
He claims the accusations harmed the band and his career when they had to cancel promotional events, endorsement deals and projects with ABC, Good Morning America, MeUndies, Vrbo, and Roblox.
Ruth’s lawyer Mark Boskovich told the Washington Examiner, “Why should Nick Carter be believed with his long history of abusing females? A jury will weigh the evidence and decide.”
Carter’s legal team did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Last December, ABC pulled the Backstreet Boys’s holiday special A Very Backstreet Holiday that was slated to air on Dec. 14 after the emergence of Ruth’s lawsuit against Carter.
In Ruth’s Dec. 9 lawsuit, she claimed she was a virgin when Carter raped her and she contracted HPV from Carter after the assault. Her attorney claimed that they had found other sexual assault victims who had contracted HPV from Carter. Carter’s attorney Michael Holtz told The Washington Examiner at the time that the accusations are “legally meritless but also entirely untrue.”
Holtz called the lawsuit “a press stunt orchestrated by an opportunistic lawyer.”
The countersuit claims Ruth “perpetuated a series of lies designed to harm Carter’s reputation and ability to earn a living” and alleges that she has spent five years trying to “harass, defame and extort” the singer.
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In Carter’s legal claims against accuser Melissa Schuman and her father Jerome Schuman, he alleges that sex with Schuman was consensual and that the pair were involved in manipulating Ruth into “making false allegations.”
A representative for the Backstreet Boys did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
