Looks like the Florida prison population won’t be getting a Backstreet Boy to play with. Nick Carter, the youngest (and arguably cutest) of the Backstreeters, has avoided jail time and disappointed any would-be cellmates by making a deal with prosecutors in a case stemming from a barroom altercation last month.
Carter, who turned 22 last week, was arrested January 2 for allegedly disobeying a cop’s orders to leave a Tampa nightclub following a scuffle inside.
On Friday, the Backstreeter agreed to enter a pretrial intervention program that, if he behaves himself, will keep him out of jail and have his record wiped clean, the St. Petersburg Times reports.
“He is a first-time offender, and we treated him just like anyone else,” Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi tells the paper.
The intervention program requires Carter to complete community service, pay a fine and keep out of trouble. If he does, the charges will be dropped and his rap sheet will be expunged. The singer had faced up to a year behind bars if he had been convicted of the misdemeanor count of resisting or opposing a law-enforcement officer without violence.
Carter’s trouble started when cops were called to bust up a fight at a club called Pop City. Although Carter apparently was not involved with the fracas, he did begin arguing with an unidentified woman and didn’t disperse, drawing the ire of police.
Cops say they asked Carter to leave the club at least 10 times before giving him the parental-style “count of three” or he’d be arrested. Sure enough, police say Carter wanted it that way: He refused to leave and was promptly cuffed and shoved into a squad car.
In a statement after his arrest, Carter insisted the cops were out to get him. “I truly believe my celebrity motivated the officer to arrest me. He said my name aloud during the incident,” he said. “I am certain that after a full investigation of the facts, my name will be cleared.”
Carter lives outside Tampa, and according to the Backstreet Boys Website, is the group’s official prankster. More fittingly, Carter also goes by the seemingly apt nicknames “Chaos” and “Mr. Hyper Man.”