Backstreet Boy Nick Carter has been sued for sexual assault and sexual battery by Melissa Schuman, a former member of the pop group Dream. Schuman first made these allegations on her blog in 2017 and filed a police report the following year. The lawsuit is now being filed after a recent bill amended the statute of limitations for civil actions.
The lawsuit alleges that Carter, now 43, raped Schuman, now 38, when she was 18 and he was 22, and states that Carter used his status and platform as an “international multiplatinum recording pop star” to “groom, manipulate, exploit, and sexually assault” her. It’s the second suit filed against Carter in the last six months — another woman, Shannon “Shay” Ruth, also alleged that Carter assaulted her on the Backstreet Boys’ tour bus during the band’s 2001 ‘Black & Blue’ tour when she was 17.
Carter’s attorney Liane K. Wakayama said in a statement that her client denies the allegations, stating that “Melissa Schuman has been peddling this tale for many years, but her allegation was false when she first made it back in 2017 —and it still is. A judge in Nevada recently ruled, after reviewing the extensive evidence we laid out, that there are strong grounds for Nick Carter to proceed with his lawsuit against Ms. Schuman for plotting to damage, defame and extort Nick, his associates, his friends and his family … in light of our progress in Nevada, this kind of response is at once both predictable and pathetic. But this PR stunt won’t shake Nick from his determination to hold Ms. Schuman and her co-conspirators to account for the immeasurable pain and suffering their extortionate conduct has caused.”
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