LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles prosecutors said on Tuesday they would not charge Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter over a 2003 sexual assault accusation because it fell outside the California statute of limitations.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office said it had reviewed the accusation by a woman who was 18 years old at the time, but said the statute of limitations had expired in 2013.
“An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence is not warranted, and the matter is declined,” prosecutors said in a charge evaluation worksheet released to the media.
They gave no details of the case, but Carter last year denied an allegation that he raped a teen pop singer 15 years ago.
An attorney for Carter, whose band is currently playing a long-term engagement in Las Vegas, said in a statement on Tuesday that the singer was “happy to put the matter behind him.”
“Nick has denied these allegations ever since he first learned of them last year,” attorney Michael Holtz said in the statement.
The Backstreet Boys were one of the biggest boy bands of the late 1990s and early 2000s, with hits like “Quit Playing Games With My Heart.”
Accusations of sexual misconduct, inspired by the #MeToo social media movement, have forced multiple celebrities, politicians and businessmen to step down or be fired in the past year.
Reporting by Jill Serjeant
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Backstreet Boy singer Nick Carter on Wednesday denied an allegation that he raped a teen pop singer 15 years ago, saying he was “shocked and saddened” by the accusation.
Melissa Schuman, who was a member of girl group Dream in the late 1990s, claimed in a lengthy blog post earlier this month that Carter forced her to have oral sex and raped her in 2002 when she was 18 and he was 22.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm Schuman’s allegation.
“I am shocked and saddened by Ms. Schuman’s accusations,” Carter, now 37, said in a statement that was emailed to media outlets.
”Melissa never expressed to me while we were together or at any time since that anything we did was not consensual.
”It is contrary to my nature and everything I hold dear to intentionally cause someone discomfort or harm,” he said in the statement.
Schuman could not immediately be reached for comment on Carter’s statement. She left Dream in 2002, and after the band made a brief comeback in 2015, it disbanded again in 2016.
She wrote on her blog in a Nov. 2 post titled “Melissa Explains It All” that she had decided to come forward after women made accusations against other prominent men in entertainment and politics, and the #MeToo social media movement.
The Backstreet Boys were one of the biggest boy bands of the late 1990s and early 2000s, with hits like “Quit Playing Games With My Heart.”
Carter and the band are currently playing a concert residency in Las Vegas that is scheduled to run through February 2018.
Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Patrick Enright
source: news.abs-cbn.com
