Nick Carter is being accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl multiple times in 2003.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday, August 28, by the now-adult plaintiff identified only as “A.R.,” claims that Carter, now 43, was 22 and 23 at the time of the alleged incidents. The filing also claims that Carter “knowingly provided alcohol and drugs to then-minor A.R.” and sexually assaulted her on a bus and in a bedroom on his yacht.
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly, the then-teenager reported the alleged assault to her mother at the time, who then informed law enforcement in Pennsylvania. Carter was never charged in connection to the allegations. The lawsuit lists sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress as causes for action.
Carter’s lawyer, Dale Hayes Jr., has denied the allegations, claiming to TMZ on Tuesday, August 29, that authorities investigated the plaintiff’s claims two decades ago and found no grounds to move forward with charges.
The attorney further alleged that the accuser is “repeating the same false allegations in a new legal complaint [but that] doesn’t make them any more true.”
The new lawsuit is the third filed against Carter for sexual assault in the last year. In April, Melissa Schuman, a former member of the girl group Dream, claimed that Carter raped her when she was 18 and he was 22. Schulman, now 39, first made the allegations on her blog in 2017 and filed a police report the following year.
An attorney for Carter, Liane K. Wakayama, denied the allegations in an April statement to Us.
“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,” the lawyer said. “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.”
Four months prior to Schuman’s lawsuit, Shannon Ruth sued Carter in December 2022, alleging that he sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager after she attended a February 2001 Backstreet Boys concert in Tacoma, Washington.
Court documents obtained by Us at the time alleged that Carter invited Ruth — who is on the autism spectrum and has cerebral palsy — to join him on his tour bus after the show. Ruth claimed that Carter then exposed himself to her, made her perform oral sex on him “under duress” and forcibly raped her.
A rep for Carter subsequently denied Ruth’s claims in a statement to Us.
“This claim about an incident that supposedly took place more than 20 years ago is not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue,” the rep’s statement read. “Unfortunately, for several years now, Ms. Ruth has been manipulated into making false allegations about Nick – and those allegations have changed repeatedly and materially over time. No one should be fooled by a press stunt orchestrated by an opportunistic lawyer – there is nothing to this claim whatsoever, which we have no doubt the courts will quickly realize.”
Carter has been married to Lauren Kitt Carter since 2014. The pair share three children: son Odin, 7, and daughters Saoirse 3, and Pearl, 2.
