Nick Carter sued for allegedly raping a teen fan
According to the accused victim’s lawyers, Carter gave her booze and then disregarded her when she “begged him to stop.”
Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter was sued on Thursday (Dec. 8) for allegedly raping a 17-year-old fan on their tour bus after a show in Washington in 2001.
Shannon “Shay” Ruth claims in a civil action filed in Nevada court that Carter chose her from a gathering of women requesting autographs after a concert in Tacoma. She claims he dragged her onto the bus, served her an alcoholic cocktail dubbed “VIP juice,” and attacked her repeatedly.
The lady, now 39, claims she waited more than 20 years to come forward out of fear of vengeance.
“He told plaintiff she would go to jail if she told anyone what happened between them,” Ruth’s lawyers wrote in the complaint, obtained by Billboard. “He said that he was Nick Carter and had the power to do that. Due to his various threats, the plaintiff did not report Carter’s crimes for many years.”
The attack allegedly left Ruth infected with the sexually-transmitted infection human papillomavirus, or HPV, according to the lawsuit.
In addition to Ruth, the case was filed on behalf of three other unidentified “Jane Doe” claimants who reportedly faced similar attacks by Carter between 2003 and 2006. According to the accusation, all three of those ladies were given drinks before being compelled to have intercourse with him; one was also supposedly underage.
Carter’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Billboard. According to TMZ, an unnamed person close to the artist said the charges were “categorically false.”
These are not Carter’s first allegations. Melissa Schuman, a former member of the teen-pop group Dream, publicly accused him of sexually abusing her when she was 18 years old in 2003. Carter rejected the charges during the time, saying Schuman had “never expressed” to him that “anything we did was not consensual.”
After an investigation into Schuman’s accusations, prosecutors in Los Angeles declined to bring criminal charges against Carter on the grounds that the 10-year statute of limitations had expired.
The new lawsuit against Carter contains explicit and disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault.
Once she had finished her “VIP drink,” Ruth says Carter took her to a bathroom and demanded that she perform oral sex on him: “Alone and under duress, Plaintiff reluctantly complied with his demand. Plaintiff cried during the ordeal.”
Following that incident, Ruth claims Carter took her to another room on the bus, where he “pushed plaintiff down onto the bed and proceeded to mount her.” She claims she “begged him to stop” and tried to flee, but “every time she said ‘No,’ Carter got angry and pushed her down harder.”
Ruth claims that after the attack, Carter grabbed her, called her a “retarded little bitch,” and told her that no one would believe her tale. According to the complaint, Ruth has autism and cerebral palsy.
Read the entire complaint here.