A former member of the girl band Dream says she has been subjected to threats of violence and physical harm since filing her lawsuit against Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter, in which she alleges he raped her in his Santa Monica apartment in 2003.
Melissa Schuman’s Santa Monica Superior Court lawsuit was brought in April 2023 and alleges sexual battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Schuman also names as a defendant Carter’s company, Kaotic Productions. She first went public with her allegations against Carter in 2017.
On Wednesday, Schuman’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Lisa K. Sepe-Wiesenfeld asking that she uphold the confidential designation of the plaintiff’s deposition and ban its public dissemination.
“Ms. Schuman’s deposition is the single most detailed and comprehensive account of her personal history, her allegations, her family, her home, her medical and psychological condition and her private life that exists anywhere,” Schuman’s lawyer states in his court papers. “If it is stripped of confidentiality and released, it will not enter a vacuum. It will enter an existing harassment ecosystem primed to exploit it.”
For more than eight years, Schuman has been the target of a relentless, coordinated campaign of harassment, threats, doxxing and stalking triggered by her public allegation that Carter raped her, according to Schuman’s attorney’s court papers.
Every time information about Schuman becomes public, it is weaponized in that her home address has been posted to hostile audiences, strangers have promised to stop by her house, anonymous people have mailed fake human waste and a threatening pamphlet to her door, some have urged her to kill herself while still others have promised that nowhere will be safe, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer’s court papers.
Any public interest in the subject matter is served instead by the public proceedings and, ultimately, by a public trial, where the evidence is presented under the court’s supervision and the objections raised throughout Ms. Schuman’s deposition would be ruled upon, according to Schuman’s attorneys’ court papers.
In her suit, Schuman contends the now-46-year-old Backstreet Boys vocalist invited her to his Santa Monica apartment in 2003, while both were working on filming a teen horror film called “The Hollow.” The complaint further states that Carter, who was with a male friend, invited her over to “hang out and play video games.”
Schuman went to his unit with her roommate, and while there, Carter began making cocktails, and the lawsuit contends he put some type of drug in her drink. Carter led her to a back office under the pretense of sharing some new music he was working on, but he began sexually assaulting her, eventually raping her in a bedroom, the lawsuit states.
Carter countersued Schuman in July 2024, alleging defamation, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage and intentional interference with contractual relations. Carter contends that Schuman fabricated the alleged assault to extort money from him.
In Nevada, Carter has also filed a conspiracy-based lawsuit against Schuman and other women alleging sexual assault by the singer.
Trial of Schuman’s suit is scheduled May 10, 2027.