Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter is facing another sexual abuse lawsuit, this time from Melissa Schuman – a former member of teen-pop group Dream who has long claimed that she was assaulted by the singer.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Los Angeles court, Schuman formalized her longstanding accusation that Carter sexually assaulted her in 2003 when she was 18 years old, while the two were starring in the teen horror movie The Hollow.
Schuman says that during a party, Carter fed her drug-laced alcohol, led her away from the group, and then repeatedly assaulted her despite clear statements that she did not consent.
“Plaintiff was too terrified to say anything,” Schuman’s lawyers wrote. “Defendant Carter exerted his control over plaintiff, despite knowing she did not consent, for his own sexual gratification.”
The lawsuit claims that the assault left Schuman infected with HPV, and that he had continued to “harass and manipulate” her after the alleged attack.
The new case came months after Carter was hit with a similar lawsuit from Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a woman who says he raped her on a tour bus when she was 17 years old following a 2001 concert in Washington state.
But it also came two weeks after a Nevada judge ruled that Carter could continue to sue both Ruth and Schuman for defamation over their accusations. Carter’s lawsuit claims the accusations from the two women are a “conspiracy” that aims to “to harass, defame and extort” him by exploiting the #MeToo movement.
In a statement to Billboard, Carter’s attorney Liane K. Wakayama called Schuman’s allegations “false” and noted the recent ruling in Nevada, saying it proved there were “strong grounds” for Carter to “proceed with his lawsuit against Ms. Schuman for plotting to damage, defame and extort Nick.”
“In light of our progress in Nevada, this kind of response is at once both predictable and pathetic,” Wakayama wrote. “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.”
Like the case filed by Ruth, the new lawsuit against Carter contains explicit and disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault.
After giving her a drink that contained “some form of flunitrazepam or a similar drug,” Schuman’s attorneys say, he led her to a bathroom, where he began to perform non-consensual oral sex on her. The lawsuit says he then demanded that she perform oral sex on him, before he took her to a bedroom and “climbed on top of her.”
“Again and again, plaintiff said NO!” her lawyers wrote in the complaint. “She told him over and over that she was a virgin, that she was saving herself for her future husband, and that she did not want to have sex. Defendant Carter continued to force himself on her, whispering in her ear that he could be her husband. Plaintiff could not get away from him, he was too heavy.”
Following the alleged assault, Schuman says she quickly told her parents, her manager, a therapist and others about the incident, but did not formally report the incident because her manager warned her that doing so could “ruin her career.”
Schuman first publicly accused Carter in 2017, saying that the music industry had “enabled abusers forever” and detailing why she had failed to come forward earlier.
“I didn’t have the money, the clout or access to an attorney who was powerful enough to stand up against my abuser’s legal counsel,” she wrote on her blog at the time. “I was told I would likely be buried in humiliation, accused of being fame hungry, and it would ultimately hurt me professionally as well as publicly.”
Carter denied the allegations at the time, saying Schuman had “never expressed” to him that “anything we did was not consensual.”
