Nick Carter Countersues Women Alleged Him of Sexual Assault

• Shannon Ruth had filed the Backstreet Boys singer for alleged sexual assault.
• Ruth said that Carter approached her while she was in line for autographs.
• He thinks he has never met Ruth.

In response to two women’s accusations that he raped them more than 15 years ago, Nick Carter is taking legal action.

Shannon Ruth, who had filed the Backstreet Boys singer for alleged sexual assault in December, received a response from the 43-year-old musician. He is also suing Melissa Schuman, a former member of the girl group Dream’s teen pop division who accused him of rape in 2017.

According to the countersuit, which PEOPLE was able to access, the two women used the #MeToo movement to initiate a five-year conspiracy to “defame and vilify Carter and otherwise damage his character for the purposes of earning publicity and fame and/or extorting money from Carter.”

In the countersuit, Schuman and Ruth are referred to as “opportunists” who sought to “destroy innocent lives” and who, following the December allegation, caused more than $2.3 million in company losses.

According to Mark J. Boskovich, Ruth’s attorney, “Why should Nick Carter be believed with his long history of abusing females? A jury will weigh the evidence and decide.”

Boskovich did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment right away.

In 2017, Schuman, now 38, claimed that Carter had reportedly sexually assaulted her in the early 2000s when they were both working on a project. In a blog post at the time, Schuman claimed that Carter had asked her over and that they kissed in the bathroom before having oral sex in spite of her objections.

He was 22 at the time, and she was 18, she said.

She claims that Carter brought her to his bedroom despite her claims that she told him she was a virgin and would wait until marriage to have sex.

Ruth revealed in December that she was suing Carter at a press conference.

Ruth, who is autistic and has cerebral palsy, said that Carter approached her while she was in line for autographs following a Backstreet Boys show in Tacoma, Washington, in 2001.

According to the documents, the singer allegedly asked Ruth if she wanted a drink and when she said she wanted apple juice, he allegedly handed her a red beverage he termed “VIP juice.” Ruth thinks the beverage also included alcohol even though Carter supposedly said it was cranberry juice.

Both charges have already been refuted by Carter. According to the countersuit, he thinks he has never met Ruth.

The request for comment from PEOPLE was not immediately answered by Carter’s lawyers.

According to the countersuit, Ruth was “a weak and extremely impressionable individual, needing attention and desperate to fit in” when Schuman and her father Jerome Schuman allegedly groomed her.

Additionally, it is claimed in the counterclaim that Schuman abused his late brother Aaron Carter, who passed away in November.

“The Schumans’ timing couldn’t have been better since, at the time, Aaron was addicted to drugs, battling serious mental health issues, and engaged in a misguided campaign of retaliation against Carter and other members of his family who were worried about Aaron and pushing him to seek professional help,” according to the suit. “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.”

The lawsuit claims that Aaron apologized to Carter after realizing he was being taken advantage of.

“In the months leading up to his recent death, Aaron not only apologized to Carter for his involvement in the Counter-Defendants’ smear campaign, but publicly stated that Schuman and Ruth were liars,” the lawsuit states.

Carter is attempting to clear his name with the countersuit.

“Just as true victims of sexual assault have the right to seek justice and be heard, so too do persons falsely accused of sexual assault have the right to due process of law and to defend themselves by speaking the truth,” the suit states.

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