Nicki Minaj harassment accuser will refile lawsuit

A lawsuit against Nicki Minaj is set to be refiled in California after it was previously dropped in New York.

Minaj was accused of harassment by Jennifer Hough who alleges that the rapper’s husband Kenneth Petty raped her in 1994. While the New York charges were dropped against Minaj, they will continue against Petty.

In the original lawsuit, Hough accused Minaj and Petty of “witness intimidation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment”.

Petty is also being separately sued for sexual assault and battery in relation to the alleged 1994 assault.

Hough alleged that Minaj and Petty had harassed and intimidated her into recanting her allegations against Petty. She claimed that she was also offered $500,000 by Minaj to say the incident never happened.

Regarding the 1994 incident, Petty was convicted of attempting to rape Hough and later imprisoned for four years but he failed to register as a sex offender, something he later pled guilty to last year.

Last week, Hough dropped the lawsuit without explanation but her lawyer says the suit is moving to California as that is where Minaj lives.

Hough’s lawyer also criticised Minaj’s legal representation: “From the beginning of the lawsuit he has engaged in a billing exercise proposing to file a countless number of frivolous sanctions, none of which were filed, and none of which has any merit. I look forward to receiving this latest edition of her counsel’s billing exercise, carefully framed as a sanctions motion.”

Minaj and Petty have denied all allegations with a lawyer for the “Starships” singer calling the lawsuit “frivolous”.

Minaj’s lawyer Judd Burstein said: “This is just a frivolous gambit to avoid a sanctions motion which I told them that I would be filing shortly and for which they refuse to set a schedule As usual, they have decided to adopt a tactic without bothering to research the law. Had they done so, they would realize that re-filing their frivolous action in another jurisdiction will only result in another Court sanctioning them.”