with one count of driving under the influence and one count of driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08, the legal limit. Carter pled guilty to the charges and was ordered to pay $1,200 in fines, was placed on three years of informal probation, had his driving privileges restricted for 90 days, and was required to complete a three-month alcohol education program. On January 13, 2016, Carter was arrested at Hog's Breath Saloon in Key West, Florida after he was refused service at the bar due to "high levels of intoxication." Carter was asked to leave by management and, after getting into a physical altercation with the bar's bouncers, was charged with misdemeanor battery. In September 2019, Carter was granted a temporary restraining order against his younger brother Aaron after alleging he threatened to kill his then-pregnant wife. On November 20, the judge made the decision the day after one of Carter's sisters was granted a domestic violence restraining order, and Carter's brother-in-law was granted a harassment restraining order until November 2020. On February 18, 2022, in a class-action lawsuit filed against the cryptocurrency company SafeMoon that alleged the company is a pump and dump scheme, Carter was named as a defendant along with YouTuber and professional boxer Jake Paul, rappers Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty, and social media personality Ben Phillips for promoting the SafeMoon token on their social media accounts with misleading information. On the same day, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a lawsuit against Bitconnect that the Securities Act of 1933 extends to targeted solicitation using social media. Rape allegations Shannon Ruth On December 8, 2022, Shannon Ruth filed a lawsuit against Carter alleging that he raped her in 2001 on board the Backstreet Boys' tour bus when she was a 17-year-old fan. The suit alleges that Ruth, who is on the autism spectrum and has cerebral palsy, was waiting to get Carter's autograph following a Backstreet Boys concert at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington when Carter invited her inside the bus, where he served her alcohol and then tried to make her perform oral sex on him before ultimately raping her. Ruth also accused Carter of calling her a "retarded little bitch" during the alleged assault, and of threatening to harm her if she told anyone. In a statement by his attorney Michael Holtz, Carter denied the allegation and claimed that