Nicki Minaj and her husband have been sued by his sexual assault victim

Nicki Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, are being sued by a woman the latter was convicted of attempting to rape 27 years ago. 

In 1994, Jennifer Hough, then aged 16, reported Petty, also 16 at the time, to the police that he had raped her. Petty was arrested that day and charged with first-degree rape, and subsequently pleaded guilty to attempted rape. He served around four and a half years of his term in prison, according to inmate records.

Now, as per The New York Times, Hough, now aged 43, has filed a lawsuit alleging that Petty and Minaj harassed her to try to make her take back her claims. The new lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges that Minaj offered Hough $500,000 via an intermediary in return for recanting her accusations against Petty.

The lawsuit claims that the intermediary gave Minaj the woman’s number in 2020, just after Petty’s arrest that year. Minaj is alleged to have then called her and offered to fly her and her family to Los Angeles. The lawsuit states that the offer was declined. Hough claims that she turned down an offer from Minaj to have the rapper’s publicist draft a statement recanting the allegation. She is also said to have told Minaj, “I need you to know woman to woman, that this happened.”

Within days of declining Minaj’s offers, Hough claims that she and her family “suffered an onslaught of harassing calls and unsolicited visits.” She said that she had been unable to work since May 2000 “due to severe depression, paranoia, constant moving, harassment and threats” from the famous couple. The lawsuit claims that Hough is now living in hiding out of fears of retaliation.

Minaj’s legal team, at this point, hasn’t yet responded to the accusations. It’s also unknown how much damages the claimant is seeking.

Minaj and Petty have been together since 2018, although they had known each other since childhood. They announced their marriage the following year and now have an 11-month-old son together.

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