Counterclaim: Woman accusing Nick Carter of rape ‘money hungry’
Attorneys for Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter filed a counterclaim against a woman who alleged Carter raped her when she was a minor.
Carter’s attorneys filed the counterclaim on Jan. 5 in response to an August complaint filed in District Court. The lawsuit alleged that in 2003 Carter gave a 15-year-old, only identified by her initials, alcohol and then raped her on Carter’s yacht in Florida.
As his attorneys argued in a counterclaim filed in response to Shannon Ruth’s rape allegations, Carter’s attorneys wrote that the two lawsuits “are the culmination of an approximate five-year conspiracy orchestrated by co-conspirators to harass, defame and extort Carter.”
John Kawai, an attorney for the alleged victim, called the counterclaim “lengthy and convoluted.”
“Carter’s attempts to villainize his victims are far from novel, and our firms look forward to enthusiastically defending our client against Carter’s meritless claims,” Kawai said Tuesday in an email.
A spokesperson for Carter’s attorneys said in an email Tuesday that the singer’s attorneys did not wish to comment.
Carter’s attorneys argued that the conspiracy was bolstered by the #MeToo movement.
“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,” Carter’s attorneys wrote.
They described the woman as “fame and money hungry” and alleged she catfished people online by pretending to be a relative of Carter. The woman’s criminal history was included in Carter’s counterclaim.
It alleged that the woman initially told law enforcement that she had consensual sexual experiences with Carter and then recanted her statement years later.
A December 2022 lawsuit alleged Ruth was raped by Carter in 2001 when Ruth was 17. Carter’s attorneys filed a counterclaim in February which a judge allowed to go forward after Ruth’s attorneys filed a motion for the counterclaim to be thrown out.
Contact David Wilson at dwilson@reviewjournal.com.
