Former pop singer Melissa Schuman says in a new court filing that the recently released docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter – which features Schuman describing her alleged 2003 rape at the hands of Nick Carter – led another accuser to reach out to her with claims that the Backstreet Boys singer sexually abused her too.
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“Just last month, Investigation Discovery aired a four-part docuseries in which plaintiff Schuman and other survivors were interviewed, after which plaintiff Schuman was contacted by another woman who disclosed that defendant Carter sexually assaulted her as well,” the new filing submitted in Los Angeles County Superior Court reads. Asked to elaborate on the unidentified woman’s claims, Schuman’s lawyer Karen Barth Menzies tells Rolling Stone that the new accuser gave her identity and enough “specific details” to appear “credible” and warrant mention to the court.
“To me, the credibility includes the fact that she came forward not anonymously to Melissa but privately to Melissa. This is not just some nameless, faceless person,” Barth Menzies says. “Nobody invites this. It’s not something fun to talk about. She is a real person.”
The lawyer says the new accuser, who alleges an assault after 2003, may eventually give testimony in support of Schuman’s litigation. She was mentioned to show the court that accusers “continue to come forward,” the lawyer says. That’s important because Carter is pushing for a suspension of Schuman’s lawsuit in California with the argument that she’s lying and he should first be allowed to prove the defamation conspiracy counter-claims that he filed against her and another accuser named Shannon “Shay” Ruth last year in Nevada. (Carter filed the claims in February 2023 as counterclaims to Ruth’s December 2022 lawsuit accusing him of a sexual assault on a bus in 2001. Schuman filed her lawsuit in April 2023 but previously stepped forward in 2017 with her allegations .)
Carter, 44, vehemently denied any wrongdoing. In court filings, he claims Schuman and Ruth hatched their alleged conspiracy to falsely accuse him for financial gain. In his latest filing, Carter wants the California judge to stay Schuman’s lawsuit until he can prove she and Ruth engaged in a five-year plot to harass, defame and extort him. His lawyers allege in their motion that the facts in both cases are “identical.” In her Wednesday filing, Schuman and her lawyers dispute this. They note that a victory for Schuman in the defamation case “cannot and will not award [her] the same relief that she is seeking in her own sexual assault claim.” They also point to the sexual assault lawsuit that was filed by third accuser Ashley Repp last August , in which Repp alleges Carter raped her multiple times in Florida when she was 15 years old and he was 23.
Carter’s lawyers did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone ‘s request for comment.
Notably, Schuman’s new filing also includes an excerpt from a June 14 filing in Nevada in which Repp’s lawyers say that a Jane Doe recently testified under oath that Carter had raped her twice in 2005. The lawyers filed the Jane Doe deposition testimony under seal, saying it was actually given as part of Ruth’s case. Schuman does not know the identity of the new accuser deposed by Ruth’s attorneys, according to Barth Menzies.
In Schuman’s new filing, the former member of the pop group Dream urges the California judge to reject Carter’s alleged “stalling tactics,” saying he is deploying them “for the purpose of litigating [his] victims into exhaustion.” She and her lawyers say Carter’s motion would cause a “harmful and unnecessary” delay in her case and should be denied. A hearing on the matter is set for July 10.
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“Arguing as if Shannon Ruth and plaintiff Schuman are the only women in his wake of sexual assault survivors, defendant ignores the many women who have accused him of sexual assaults that occurred before and after plaintiff Schuman’s assault in 2003,” the Wednesday filing reads. “Defendants are manipulating the legal process and recycling failed arguments to stall litigation of plaintiff’s separate and independent claim properly filed in this court.”
Schuman, Ruth and Repp all participated in the Fallen Idols docuseries about Carter that premiered on May 27. Carter’s lawyers responded by blasting the women’s on-camera interviews.
“These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators. Those cases are working their way through the legal system now, and, based on both the initial court rulings and the overwhelming evidence, we have every belief that we will prevail and hold them accountable for spreading these falsehoods,” Carter’s lawyers Liane Wakayama and Dale Hayes Jr., said in a statement. (In its rulings so far, the Nevada court denied requests by Schuman and Ruth to dismiss Carter’s defamation claims on the grounds that their allegations were protected free speech.)
Lawyers for Ruth did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the case of Repp, Carter countersued her for defamation as well. He alleges Repp consented to having sex and told him and others that she was 18 years old. (Ruth’s case is now consolidated with Ruth’s under the same judge in Nevada.)
“The court is considering our motion to dismiss Carter’s counterclaims, but statutory rape is a form of rape,” Repp’s lawyer Margaret Mabie tells Rolling Stone .
“Even Carter’s own version of events amounts to rape under the law, and in the meantime, at least one new victim has come out on the record. While Carter’s attorneys requested that the record be kept under seal for the time being, that may change,” John Kawai, another attorney representing Repp, says.
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