Nick Carter has responded legally to Melissa Schuman’s lawsuit after she accused him of sexual assault. In his own counterclaim obtained by PEOPLE on Tuesday, Aug. 13, the Backstreet Boys singer denies Schuman’s allegations and seeks $2.5 million against her.
Carter’s filing comes more than a year after Schuman, 39, sued him in April 2023 for sexual assault and battery, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE at the time. She claimed that Carter, 44, invited her to his apartment in Santa Monica, California after they filmed the teen thriller Cavity together in 2003. Schuman claimed that shortly after she and a friend arrived at Carter’s apartment, he sedated her and sexually assaulted her. He was 22 and she was 18.
In his counterclaim filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles County on July 26, Carter alleged that Schuman, who was the lead singer of the ’90s girl group Dream, made false statements when she first accused him of sexual assault on her blog in 2017. She later gave several interviews in which she backed up her claims, according to Carter’s filing.
Nick Carter in New York in June 2017.
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Carter’s counterclaim alleges that Schuman continued to make several defamatory statements when she named him as her rapist on social media, in a documentary and at press conferences between September 2023 and May 2024. He insists that their sexual relationship was consensual and that they her claims to try to revive her “waning career”.
Carter claims Schuman is well aware of his business and intentionally made the statements “with the specific intent to damage Carter’s reputation and interfere with his business opportunities, advantages and contracts,” according to his filing.
In response to Schuman’s lawsuit, Carter, through his attorneys, denied “every” allegation Schuman made against him in her lawsuit. He alleged that her complaint “does not allege facts” and should be barred by the statute of limitations and the unclean hands doctrine, which is an “equitable defense that precludes relief to the inequitable party,” according to Westlaw. Today.
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The documents also state that Schuman’s lawsuit was not filed in good faith, stating that “Carter did not sexually assault her.” The filing further denies any attempt by Carter to “cover up” her allegations.
He also denies claims that Carter sexually assaulted Shannon Ruth, who sued him in December 2022 for alleged sexual abuse. Carter countersued Ruth in Nevada after she claimed he raped her on a tour bus in 2001 when she was 17.
In May, Carter filed a motion seeking a hearing and asking the court to grant him summary judgment on Ruth’s claims “for sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.”
He also named Schuman in that submission.
Schuman’s attorney Karen Barth Menzies responded to Carter’s latest filing, telling PEOPLE in a statement, “Carter’s counterclaim in California makes the same arguments as his stalled lawsuit in Nevada, both of which show that his approach to defending sexual assault claims is an attack on victims.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
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Source: HIS Education