A Nevada judge has dismissed the defamation lawsuit filed by Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter against Ashley Repp, the accuser who alleges Carter raped her on a yacht in 2003 when she was 15 years old.
Carter countersued Repp with the defamation claims in January after she became the third woman to sue him for alleged sexual assault. In her underlying lawsuit filed in August 2023, Repp alleged Carter had sex with her in 2003 while she was intoxicated and a guest at his family’s compound in Marathon, Florida. (She initially filed as a Jane Doe but later participated in the docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter.)
In his countersuit, Carter claimed that Repp told him she was 18 years old. Carter admitted in the filing that he had sex with Repp in 2003, but he called it “consensual,” saying it took place after they spent several days together and developed “a connection.”
At a hearing in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Clark County Judge Joe Hardy Jr. said Carter had no grounds to go after Repp for calling him a “rapist” because their sexual interaction met the standard for statutory rape under Florida law. “The truth is an absolute defense,” Judge Hardy ruled from the bench. “Based on Carter’s own judicial admissions, they did have sex. They had sexual relations, and she was a minor.”
The judge said Carter’s arguments that Repp was “deceitful” were “irrelevant” to her motion to dismiss the defamation countersuit. He said Carter could use those claims to attack Repp’s credibility if her lawsuit goes to trial.
“Her birthday and the date they had those sexual relations is undisputed,” the judge said Tuesday. “People use the phrase ‘statutory rape,’ and a person who commits statutory rape is the rapist.”
Repp claimed victory in a statement Wednesday. “I am so thankful that the voice of my 15-year-old self is finally being heard and believed. All I ever wanted was to set myself free. I hope anyone else struggling can do the same,” she said.
“More defendants are responding to sexual abuse lawsuits by suing survivors for defamation. These attempts to scare off the truth of sexual abuse have a massive chilling effect on survivors seeking to bring claims against powerful people,” Repp’s lawyer Margaret Mabie with The Marsh Law Firm said. “Ashley stood up for herself against Carter’s frivolous counterclaims with the ultimate defense: the truth,” Repp’s other lawyer John Kawai with Trial Lawyers for Justice added.
In a related ruling Tuesday, Judge Hardy also shot down Carter’s attempt to get the sexual battery lawsuit filed by another accuser, Shannon Ruth, thrown out. In that motion asking for summary judgment in his favor, Carter claimed that Ruth’s allegations simply weren’t possible. In her lawsuit filed in December 2022, Ruth claimed that Carter sexually assaulted her on a tour bus in February 2001 after a concert in Tacoma, Washington.
“Her accusations are factually impossible,” Carter’s lawyer Liane Wakayama argued at the Tuesday hearing posted online by the nonprofit website Our Nevada Judges. She argued that fans spotted Carter leaving the concert and arriving at his hotel without any notable delay. Ruth’s lawyer disputed the claim, arguing that a friend of Ruth’s recalls that Ruth was “escorted away” for an autograph and later returned “hysterical” and “disheveled.” “We’ve never alleged the assault took place for hours,” lawyer Mark Boskovich argued before the judge’s ruling. “It could have taken minutes for these events to transpire.”
Judge Hardy agreed with Boskovich that “genuine issues of material fact” remained, so Carter’s motion was denied. “Ms. Ruth is pleased she will be able to show the truth to the jury,” Boskovich said in a statement to Rolling Stone on Wednesday. Carter’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment on the Tuesday hearing.
The two rulings against Carter came two weeks after Carter countersued another accuser, Melissa Schuman, for defamation in California. Schuman, a former member of the pop group DREAM, alleges Carter drugged and raped her at his Santa Monica apartment in 2003, when she was 17. Carter denies the claim. Before countersuing Schuman in Los Angeles County on July 26, Carter also sued her for defamation along with Ruth and Repp in Nevada.
“Nick Carter is a violent sexual predator who tries to attack and intimidate his survivors when they speak out. I’m not afraid of his aggressive tactics and lies,” Schuman tells Rolling Stone of the Nevada rulings. “I’ve experienced truth scrutinized down to every detail, and he should be ready for what happens when his lies are exposed under the microscope of the court. I look forward to his deposition in my case,” she said. “Ashley and Shay display incredible courage and resilience by standing up to Nick’s ferocious attacks against them.”
