Allegations in the documentary series “Fallen Idols” are deemed “outrageous” by Nick Carter’s lawyer.

TFD – Nick Carter, member of the Backstreet Boys, is embroiled in a series of sexual abuse lawsuits. The allegations, featured in the documentary ‘Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter,’ include claims from three women and have led to a fierce legal battle. The cases are still pending, and the documentary has reignited public interest and concern over the allegations.

In response to claims of sexual abuse presented in a recent Investigation Discovery documentary about the singer and his late brother, Aaron Carter, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter’s lawyer has responded.

Three women—Ashley Repp, Melissa Schuman Henschel, and Shannon “Shay” Ruth—describe alleged assaults in 2001 and 2003 for which they have previously sued Nick Carter in “Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter.”

At age 34, Aaron Carter passed away in 2022.

Nick Carter’s lawyer, Dale Hayes Jr., responded to a CNN question about the documentary in advance of its broadcast, saying, “These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators.” The program will appear in two parts on Monday and Tuesday.

Three distinct complaints were lodged by the women between December 2022 and August 2023. In 2023 and 2024, Carter made two counterclaims: one against Henschel and Ruth and the other against Repp.

“Those cases are currently going through the legal system, and we believe we will win and hold them accountable for spreading these falsehoods based on both the initial court rulings and the overwhelming evidence,” the attorney for Nick Carter continued in the statement.

The first two installments of “Fallen Idols” delves into the lives of Henschel and Repp, highlighting their difficult upbringings and personal struggles. The episodes premiered on Monday night. The last two episodes will stream on Max and air on ID on Tuesday night. The fourth episode tells Ruth’s story.

The documentary claims that Nick Carter refused to be interviewed by the producers.

The charges

In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles last year, 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. A copy of her complaint is available on the “Fallen Idols” webpage.

Henschel stated in her lawsuit that the alleged assault happened in 2003, when she was eighteen, at Carter’s Santa Monica house. Carter, who was 22 at the time, was accused in the complaint of having oral sex with her “against her will” and “forcing” Henschel to engage in sexual activity with him prior to raping her. She says that she informed the singer on multiple occasions that “she did not want to have sex.”

In the documentary series, she appears in all four episodes and restates her claims.

In a 2017 entry, she brought up the accusations against him for the first time on her personal blog. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a 2018 court document that they will not press charges of sexual assault against Carter because of the statute of limitations, which ran out in 2013.

The Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, passed by California in 2022, permits adult survivors who satisfy specific requirements to bring legal action in situations where the statute of limitations has run out. Online documents indicate that Henschel filed a lawsuit against Carter in April 2023. 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.

In a 2017 statement to CNN, Carter refuted the accusations, claiming, “Since our relationship began, Melissa has never told me that anything we did was not consensual. I continued to be respectful and helpful of Melissa on a personal and professional level as we went on to record a song and perform together.

“Nearly two decades later, this is the first I am hearing about these accusations,” he continued. “It goes against my character and everything I value to purposefully hurt or discomfort someone.”

Repp recounts her story in “Fallen Idols” episode two.

Repp filed a lawsuit in August 2023 using only his initials, A.R., alleging sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit was based on two alleged incidents that occurred on Nick Carter’s boats in Marathon, Florida, in 2003, when Repp was fifteen years old.

Repp alleges in the lawsuit that Carter gave her drink “to the point that she was intoxicated at the time,” knew she was a juvenile, and had sex with her “without her consent.” Additionally, according to Repp, he “promoted and enticed” his three male friends to see him “engaging in sexual intercourse” with her at the second occurrence.

Carter “continued to engage in sexual intercourse with A.R. despite her repeated refusals and requests for him to stop,” the complaint states. In the complaint, Repp also claimed that she became infected with an STD as a result of the event.

In a countersuit filed in January, Carter refuted Repp’s claims, according to papers that are accessible online.

Ruth, who will star in “Fallen Idols” on Tuesday, sued Carter for sexual abuse in December 2022, claiming the singer had raped her when she was 17 years old on the Backstreet Boys tour bus in Tacoma, Washington, in 2001.

Ruth’s claims were described as “not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue” by Carter’s attorney Michael Holtz in a statement made available to CNN at the time. Carter later filed a counterclaim against Ruth, Henschel, and Henschel’s father Jerome Schuman in 2023. Carter denied the allegations.

According to a copy of the suit uploaded to the “Fallen Idols” website, Carter claims in his counterclaim from January that Ruth 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 the counterclaim, “Schum posted a salacious blog entry in November 2017 falsely asserting that she had been sexually assaulted by Carter in 2003, launching and bolstering the campaign from its inception.”

In addition to representatives for Retrac Inc., doing business as Kaotic Productions, which is also listed as a defendant in Schuman’s complaint, CNN has also gotten in touch with the attorneys for Henschel, Ruth, and Repp.

All three lawsuits are still pending.