Backstreet Boy Nick Carter was arrested in Tampa, Florida, early Wednesday morning for refusing to heed police officers' orders to leave a nightclub following a fight.

Carter, 21, was charged with a misdemeanor count of resisting/opposing a law enforcement officer without violence and was released on his own recognizance, according to a police spokesperson. The offense carries a sentence of up to one year in jail and a $500 fine.

The singer, meanwhile, believes his celebrity status prompted the arrest and that his name will be cleared, a Jive Records spokesperson said.

Police were summoned to Pop City nightclub earlier in the evening to investigate a fight, and they returned to the club at 3:20 a.m. to break up a second, unrelated disturbance. As the officers arrested five patrons responsible for the ruckus, they observed Carter, a resident of nearby Marathon, involved in a loud argument with an unidentified woman.

Police said that when they instructed him to quiet down more than 10 times and he refused, the youngest of the five Backstreet Boys was given an ultimatum to "leave by the count of three." When time ran out and Carter was still there, he was handcuffed, placed in a police car and arrested. The unidentified woman was not.

"I have done nothing wrong," Carter said in a statement. "My arrest at Pop City nightclub last night was a result of simply moving too slow. I was attempiting to comply with an officer's request to leave a club when I was detained and given a citation."

A spokesperson at Pop City had no comment.

Carter is scheduled to answer the charges in court March 4.

—Joe D'Angelo and Tina Johnson