A third woman has filed a sexual assault lawsuit on Monday against Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter, alleging he assaulted her multiple times when she was 15. The suit, filed by a Jane Doe identified as A.R., claims the incidents occurred several times on a yacht and once in the back of a tour bus in 2003, according to Billboard. Carter was 23 at the time.
The complaint alleges Carter gave the teen alcohol and drugs and continued assaulting her “despite her repeated refusals and requests for him to stop.” She claims he left her with sexually-transmitted diseases and “severe emotional distress, physical anguish, intimacy issues, and other complex trauma.”
The first alleged assault occurred, according to the suit, in August 2003 when he “directed” A.R. to go to the cabin of his yacht. While there, he allegedly convinced A.R., who says she was intoxicated, into oral sex and he “penetrated her vagina with his genitals.” She says she did not consent to this. She then claims Carter’s sister “encouraged” her, Billboard reports, to meet the singer on his bus where he allegedly “coerced” her again into oral sex and then a month later, she claims, he invited three men to watch her have sex with him on the yacht.
A.R. and her mother subsequently went to the police in the Pennsylvania area where she lived.
In a statement on Wednesday, Carter’s attorneys claimed that a police investigation cleared his name and that authorities said she “could herself have been charged with a crime.”
“Repeating the same false allegations in a new legal complaint doesn’t make them any more true,” the singer’s lawyer Dale Hayes Jr. said in the statement. “Nick is looking forward to the evidence being presented and the truth about these malicious schemes coming to light.”
A.R.’s attorney, John Kawai, told Billboard he believes that a lack of criminal charges shouldn’t stop her from suing Carter. “Abusers can take notice that just because they avoided prison doesn’t mean they don’t have to answer to a jury for their actions,” he said.
Last year, a woman named Shannon “Shay” Ruth claimed in a lawsuit that Carter allegedly raped her when she was 17. He filed a countersuit against her in February, claiming she’d been “manipulated into making false allegations.” He was seeking $2.35 million in damages over canceled appearances, such as a Backstreet Boys holiday special that ABC canceled following the allegations. Ruth subsequently claimed Carter had allegedly tried to “harass” and “silence” her. In March, a Clark County judge allowed Carter’s countersuit to go through.
In April, another woman, Melissa Schuman, filed a lawsuit alleging rape, claiming he groomed and exploited her when she was 18 in 2003. On Wednesday, a Clark County judge allowed Carter to file a counterclaim against Schuman, according to KTNV. Liane K. Wakayama, an attorney for Carter, framed Schuman’s claims as “a brazen attempt to get rich off of him.”
Schuman’s lawyer argued that she had told her story to several people in 2003 who could corroborate hearing it, calling Carter’s allegations of extortion “a recent fabrication.”
Judge Nancy Allf ultimately decided Carter’s lawyer “met the statutory standard to survive this motion,” allowing the action to proceed.
Carter has denied the allegations made by A.R., as well as those in the two separate suits filed against him. Both Schuman and Ruth have attempted to stop his counterclaims under the state’s anti-SLAPP laws, but a judge rejected their requests.