Nick Carter’s attorney calls allegations in ‘Fallen Idols’ docuseries ‘outrageous’
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — An attorney for Backstreet Boy Nick Carter has responded to allegations of sexual assault featured in a new Investigation Discovery docuseries about the singer and his late brother, Aaron Carter.
In “Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter,” three women – Ashley Repp, Melissa Schuman Henschel and Shannon “Shay” Ruth – describe alleged assaults in 2001 and 2003 that they have previously sued Nick Carter over.
Aaron Carter died in 2022 at age 34.
When asked to comment on the documentary ahead of its airing, which is airing in two parts on Monday and Tuesday, Dale Hayes Jr., Nick Carter’s attorney, told CNN in a statement: “These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators.”
The women filed three separate complaints from December 2022 to August 2023. Carter filed two counterclaims in 2023 and 2024, the first against Henschel and Ruth and the second against Repp.
“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,” the statement from Nick Carter’s lawyer added.
The first two episodes of “Fallen Idols” aired Monday night and explored Henschel’s and Repp’s stories, as well as the brothers’ troubled home lives while growing up. The final two installments air on Tuesday night on ID and will stream on Max. Ruth’s story is shared in the fourth episode. (CNN and ID, like Max, are units of Warner Bros. Discovery.)
Nick Carter declined to be interviewed by the filmmakers, according to the documentary.
The accusations
Henschel, a former pop singer with the girl group Dream, accused Nick Carter of using his “role, status, and power as a wellknown singer to gain access to, groom, manipulate, exploit, and sexually assault” her in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles last year, according to a copy of her complaint featured on the “Fallen Idols” webpage.
In her lawsuit, Henschel claimed the alleged incident took place in 2003 at Carter’s home in Santa Monica when she was 18. The complaint alleged that Carter, who was 22 at the time, performed oral sex on her “against her will” and “forced” Henschel to perform a sex act on him before raping her. She claims she repeatedly told the singer that “she did not want to have sex.”
She reiterated these claims in the docuseries and appears throughout the four episodes.
She first raised the allegations against him in a 2017 entry posted to her personal blog. Due to the statute of limitations that expired in 2013, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office stated in a 2018 legal filing that they would not pursue sexual assault charges against Carter.
In 2022, California passed the Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, which allows adult survivors who meet certain criteria to file lawsuits in cases where the statute of limitations has expired. Henschel sued Carter in April 2023, online records show. According to an amended complaint filed in October 2023, a copy of which is featured on the “Fallen Idols” website, Henschel sued Carter for sexual battery, sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence.
Carter denied the allegations in a statement provided to CNN in 2017, saying, “Melissa never expressed to me while we were together or at any time since that anything we did was not consensual. We went on to record a song and perform together, and I was always respectful and supportive of Melissa both personally and professionally.”
“This is the first that I am hearing about these accusations, nearly two decades later,” he added. “It is contrary to my nature and everything I hold dear to intentionally cause someone discomfort or harm.”
In the second episode of “Fallen Idols,” Repp shares her account.
Repp’s lawsuit alleging sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress was filed using just the initials A.R. in August 2023 and stems from two alleged incidents on Nick Carter’s boats in Marathon, Florida, in 2003, when Repp was 15 years old.
According to the complaint, Repp accuses Carter of providing her with alcohol “such that she was intoxicated at the time,” knowing she was a minor, and engaging in sex acts with her “without her consent.” Repp also alleges that during the second incident, he “promoted and enticed” his three male friends on the boat to watch him “engaging in sexual intercourse” with her.
Carter, according to the complaint, “continued to engage in sexual intercourse with A.R. despite her repeated refusals and requests for him to stop.” Repp also alleged in the complaint that she contracted a sexually transmitted disease following the incident.
Carter denied Repp’s allegations in a countersuit filed in January, records available online show.
Ruth, who will appear in “Fallen Idols” on Tuesday, filed a sexual battery lawsuit against Carter in December 2022 accusing the singer of raping her on the Backstreet Boys’ tour bus in 2001 in Tacoma, Washington, when she was 17 years old.
Carter denied the allegations in a statement provided to CNN at the time from his attorney Michael Holtz, who characterized Ruth’s claims as “not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue,” and later filed a counterclaim against Ruth, Henschel and Henschel’s father Jerome Schuman in 2023.
In his January counterclaim, Carter alleges that Ruth’s and Repp’s “lawsuits are the culmination of an approximate five-year conspiracy orchestrated by Co-Conspirators to harass, defame and extort Carter,” according to a copy of the suit posted to the “Fallen Idols” website. “The campaign was launched and bolstered by the #MeToo movement, beginning at its dawn, when Schuman posted a salacious blog entry in November 2017, falsely asserting that she had been sexually assaulted by Carter in 2003,” the counterclaim states.
CNN has reached out to attorneys for Henschel, Ruth and Repp, in addition to representatives for Retrac Inc., doing business as Kaotic Productions, which is also cited as a defendant in Schuman’s complaint.
The three cases remain ongoing.
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