The Backstreet Boys singer, denounced for raping a 17-year-old woman with autism in 2001

On February 25 and 26, 2001, the Backstreet Boys filled the Tacoma Dome, one of the stadiums in the city of Tacoma, in the State of Washington (USA).

One of those two days, when the concert ended, Shannon Hay Ruth came out to wait for the band in the autograph line.

She was 17, with autism and mild cerebral palsy, and she was hoping to get an autograph.

It was Nick Carter, the youngest of that group that marked a generation, who invited her to get on the tour bus.

There, he forced her to drink alcohol and raped her.

She told it this Thursday, already 39 years old, after filing the complaint against Carter along with three other women who prefer to remain anonymous and who were also minors at the time of the attack.

“After he raped me, I remember him calling me a retarded bitch and grabbing me, leaving bruises on my arm.

He tried to scare me into not telling me anything by telling me that no one would believe me if I told what had happened and he threatened that if I did I would be the one who would go to jail and turn people against me because he was Nick Carter and He had the power to ruin my life," Shay recalled during the press conference she gave with her lawyer, Mark Boskovich, after filing the lawsuit in a Nevada state court, where both she and Carter live.

For her, “the last 21 years have been filled with pain, confusion, frustration, shame and self-harm”, “a direct result” of the rape.

Shay, who had not yet had sex with anyone at the time, contracted the human papillomavirus;

something that the other three victims have also denounced.

It was Boskovich, the lawyer, who detailed the assault that began as soon as she got on the bus, "he gave her something he called VIP juice, and when Shea had drunk it, he took her to the bus bathroom and Carter told her to put on On his knees, he dropped his pants and ordered him to give him fellatio."

She "cried" while it was happening.

“But that didn't stop him.

He took Shea to a bed at the back of the bus and raped her despite her repeated pleas for him to stop.

Every time Shea would say 'no' and try to get out of there, Carter would get mad at her and push her against the bed”.

Throughout the story, Shea cried, with her mother by her side.

"Despite having autism and cerebral palsy, I think nothing has affected me more in my life than what Nick Carter did to me."

After that, he lived with the idea that if he told something he would "really" go to jail, he cut himself off because he couldn't "find" another way to express what he felt and he still has problems with self-esteem and confidence.

And guilt: "For getting on that bus with Nick."

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He did not report it before, he explained, "for fear of reprisals."

His goal is to "prevent Nick Carter from continuing to assault adolescents and women."

Now, he says, she knows that she is not "the only one he did this to" and hopes that by making it public, "many other women will find the courage" to denounce it and that the singer will take responsibility for him.

This is not the first time that a woman has accused the singer of rape.

In 2017, Melissa Schuman, a former member of the pop group Dream, accused him of raping her in 2002 when she was 18 years old.

According to the artist's account, the singer invited her to spend a day with a friend of hers in her apartment in Santa Monica, California, and Schuman went with her roommate.

At one point that day, Schuman and Carter began to kiss, but she told him that she did not want to go any further, since, due to religious convictions, she was a virgin and pretended to be until she was married.

Despite her telling him to stop, Carter unbuttoned her pants and performed oral sex on her.

He then took off her pants and asked her to do the same, but she refused.

Carter became angry, according to the singer's testimony, and put Schuman's hand on her penis.

Out of fear, she says, she finally agreed.

After her, the musician took her to her bed, lay down on her, and despite her refusals, raped her.

A year later, in 2018, the Los Angeles Prosecutor's Office (California, USA) also investigated another violation, although the name of the woman who denounced was not known.

To the first accusations, those of Schuman, Carter did respond through a statement in

magazine in which he said he was "shocked and saddened."

“This is the first time I have heard these accusations, almost two decades later.

It is contrary to my nature and everything I hold dear to intentionally cause someone discomfort or harm."

Now, about these four joint lawsuits, neither the singer nor his representatives have spoken.