Nick Carter, a member of the Backstreet Boys, is a defendant in four civil sexual assault lawsuits filed by women describing incidents between 2001 and 2005, with a consolidated Nevada trial set for October 12, 2026, and a California trial set for May 10, 2027. Carter denies every allegation, has not been criminally charged, and has filed his own defamation and conspiracy claims against several of the accusers.
The Four Accusers
The suits were filed in Nevada and California between December 2022 and April 2025. Each woman describes a different encounter, but several allege Carter gave them substances beforehand and infected them with sexually transmitted infections.
Shannon Ruth filed first, in December 2022 in Clark County, Nevada. She alleges Carter assaulted her on a tour bus in Tacoma, Washington, after a 2001 Backstreet Boys concert, when she was 17. She says he gave her something he called “VIP Juice.” Her claims include sexual battery and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Melissa Schuman, a former member of the girl group Dream, filed in April 2023 in Santa Monica Superior Court. She alleges Carter drugged her drink and raped her at his Santa Monica apartment in 2003, when she was 18. Schuman says she told Carter she was a virgin and did not want to have sex. She first went public with the allegations in 2017. Her suit also names Carter’s company, Retrac Inc., doing business as Kaotic Productions.
Ashley Repp sued in August 2023, initially as a Jane Doe. She alleges Carter assaulted her multiple times on a yacht and a tour bus in Florida in 2003, when she was 15 and Carter was 23. She says he provided her alcohol and drugs and infected her with HPV. Repp later revealed her identity in the Fallen Idols docuseries.
Laura Penly filed most recently, in Nevada in April 2025. She alleges Carter raped her on two occasions between late 2004 and early 2005, when she was 19, refused to use protection, and infected her with chlamydia, gonorrhea, and HPV. She says she was diagnosed with Stage 2 cervical cancer by August 2005. She is seeking damages in excess of $15,000 and has demanded a jury trial.
Why There Are No Criminal Charges
No prosecutor has charged Carter in connection with any of these allegations. The Santa Monica Police Department investigated Schuman’s report after she filed it in 2017 and forwarded the file to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in mid-2018. On September 11, 2018, the DA’s office declined to prosecute, citing the statute of limitations for the alleged 2003 assault, which had expired in 2013. Schuman said at the time her family was “well aware of the likelihood that my case was not prosecutable due to the statute of limitations.”
On Repp’s allegations, Carter’s attorney Dale Hayes Jr. has said law enforcement looked into the incidents in 2003 and no charges were brought against either party.
How Schuman’s Civil Case Got a Second Life
Schuman’s civil complaint exists because of the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, California’s AB 2777, which took effect January 1, 2023. The law temporarily reopened the filing window for adult survivors whose claims had been blocked by expired statutes of limitations. Before it passed, Schuman’s civil claims were time-barred just as the criminal ones had been. Her attorney, Karen Barth Menzies of KBM Law, said the statute recognizes that “there is frequently a conspiracy to silence survivors and cover up sexual abuse” and “provides a path for survivors to hold all parties to account in a court of law.”
Carter’s Denials and Counterclaims
Carter’s attorneys, Liane K. Wakayama and Dale Hayes Jr., have called the lawsuits “nonsense from the gang of conspirators and their lawyers who continue to abuse the justice system to try to ruin Nick Carter.” On Penly, they said Carter “does not recall ever even meeting” her and “certainly never had any romantic or sexual relationship with her.”
He has also gone on offense. In February 2023, Carter filed a countersuit against Ruth, Schuman, and Schuman’s father Jerome Schuman, seeking at least $2.35 million and alleging a five-year conspiracy “to harass, defame and extort” him. The filing cited financial losses from cancelled Backstreet Boys events, media appearances, and endorsement deals with MeUndies, VRBO, and Roblox. ABC had cancelled a pre-taped Backstreet Boys holiday television special after Ruth filed suit.
In July 2024, Carter filed a separate $2.5 million cross-complaint against Schuman in California, alleging defamation and extortion and claiming the sexual encounter was consensual.
He also tried to countersue Repp for defamation, but a judge dismissed that counterclaim in August 2024 after her attorneys prevailed on an anti-SLAPP motion. In that filing, Carter had admitted sexual contact with Repp in 2003 but said he believed she was 18. Repp’s attorneys argued the admission amounted to acknowledging statutory rape, since she was 15.
In November 2025, Carter moved to add Leisha Stinson, Schuman’s mother, as a defendant in his Nevada defamation suit, alleging she ran an anonymous Twitter account used to spread defamatory statements about him. No ruling on that motion has been reported.
Where the Courts Have Ruled So Far
On November 26, 2024, the Nevada Supreme Court issued a split decision on Ruth’s anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss Carter’s defamation counterclaim. The court let Carter proceed with his claim regarding Ruth’s allegation that he personally assaulted her, finding he had produced enough contradictory evidence, including witness statements and security logs, to create a genuine factual dispute. But it ordered dismissal of the portion of Carter’s claim targeting Ruth’s broader statements that Carter had assaulted other women, finding Carter had not shown actual malice as to those statements.
The same ruling rejected the argument that Ruth’s statements on social media, podcasts, and at press conferences were protected by litigation privilege, holding that those audiences did not have a “significant interest” in the legal proceeding.
On January 28, 2025, the Nevada Supreme Court denied an anti-SLAPP motion filed by Melissa and Jerome Schuman for a second time, allowing Carter’s defamation, extortion, and conspiracy claims against them to move forward.
In California, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa K. Sepe-Wiesenfeld denied Carter’s motion to dismiss Schuman’s complaint or transfer the case to Las Vegas. Carter had argued Nevada was the proper venue because he and his company were domiciled there; the court kept the case in Santa Monica.
Trial Dates and What’s Next
Two trials are on the calendar. The Ruth, Repp, and Penly claims have been consolidated into a single Nevada jury trial set to begin October 12, 2026. A hearing on Carter’s motion for partial summary judgment against Repp’s claims was set for February 9, 2026, and no ruling has been reported.
In December 2025, Penly’s legal team offered to settle her claims for $1 million. Carter’s attorneys rejected the offer, with Hayes calling it a “shakedown” and saying Carter has “absolutely no interest in paying a dime.”
Schuman’s California case has a firm jury trial date of May 10, 2027. The court has ordered mediation completed by January 2027, though Carter’s counsel described the parties as “diametrically opposed.” Depositions of both Schuman and Carter are scheduled for early 2027.