Nick Carter is countersuing the woman who alleges he raped her when she was a teenage Backstreet Boys fan in 2001. Carter's countersuit claims that in a five-year-long scheme to "harass, defame, and extort" Carter, a previous Carter accuser and her father manipulated the latest accuser, Shannon Ruth, into making these accusations against Carter and filing her lawsuit claiming he sexually assaulted her. Carter's countersuit also says they exploited the condition of his brother Aaron Carter, who died in November, as part of the alleged ploy; he claims they somehow got in touch with Aaron Carter when he was on drugs and on bad terms with Nick Carter.
Naming Melissa Schuman (who in 2017 accused Carter of raping her in 2002 in an encounter Carter says was consensual; charges were not filed) and her father Jerome Schuman, the countersuit claims the father-daughter pair coached Ruth: “Schuman, Jerome, and Ruth exploited Aaron's fragile condition and family stresses to cloak their defamatory campaign with credibility, relentlessly and repeatedly using Aaron to try to legitimize their frivolous tales." Ruth, the countersuit adds, "perpetuated a series of lies designed to harm Carter’s reputation and ability to earn a living."
Carter seeks $2.35 million in damages, the amount he says he and the Backstreet Boys lost due to events, contracts, and endorsement deals being canceled after Ruth's lawsuit was filed. Ruth's lawyer's response? "Why should Nick Carter be believed with his long history of abusing females," he muses to BuzzFeed News and TMZ. "A jury will weigh the evidence and decide." (More Nick Carter stories.)
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