Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter Faces Fourth Sexual-Assault Allegation

ABLUpdated 3 days Ago1 Mins read0

A fourth woman has sued Nick Carter for sexual assault over two incidents in 2005. The woman, Laura Penley, claimed she would visit travel from Oregon to Los Angeles to visit the Backstreet Boys singer, and they had consensual sex multiple times, Rolling Stone reported. When she told him she did not want to have sex during one visit, she claims he told her “the only reason she was there was to have sex” and proceeded to restrain and rape her. She said Carter apologized and invited her back to L.A. two months later, where she alleges he assaulted her a second time. Carter’s lawyers denied Penley’s allegations, claiming he “does not recall even meeting” her. “He certainly never had any romantic or sexual relationship with her. Ever,” they said.

Penley further alleged Carter did not use protection when he raped her. As a result, she said in the lawsuit, she contracted HPV, leading her to be diagnosed with stage-two cervical cancer later in 2005. Her lawsuit said the assaults caused “severe emotional distress, physical anguish, medical issues, intimacy issues, and other complex trauma.” Carter’s lawyers said Penley’s health issues “have absolutely nothing to do with Nick.”

Penley’s lawsuit adds to a growing chorus of sexual-assault allegations against Carter. He was first sued by Shannon “Shay” Ruth in 2022, over an alleged assault when she was 17 in 2001. Two more women followed in 2023: Melissa Schuman of girl group Dream, who claimed Carter raped her in 2003, and a woman named Ashley Repp, who also accused Carter of raping her in 2003, when she was 15. Carter has denied all the allegations and sued all three women for defamation, though a judge threw out his defamation claim against Repp.

Penley was asked to testify in the other women’s cases, she claimed in her lawsuit, and has been harassed by Carter’s fans as a result. Carter’s lawyers accused her of working with the other woman to thwart the Backstreet Boys’ summer residency at the Sphere, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their 13-times platinum album Millennium. “This is just more of the same nonsense from the gang of conspirators and their lawyers who continue to abuse the justice system to try to ruin Nick Carter,” his lawyers assert.