Rapper Nicki Minaj was dropped from a lawsuit alleging that she harassed and intimidated her husband’s sexual assault victim, according to court documents.
The motion was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
“The case against Nicki was voluntarily dismissed,” said attorney Tyrone Blackburn, who represents the accuser. “The case against Kenneth Petty is still ongoing. Stay tuned!”
The accuser publicly identified herself as Jennifer Hough. She alleged in the lawsuit that Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, tried to force her to recant a rape allegation Hough said happened more than two decades ago.
The suit also alleged that Minaj went as far as to bribe Hough. Attorneys for Minaj and Petty filed separate court responses saying the allegations were false.
Following the dismissal, Minaj’s attorney sent an email to Hough’s attorneys accusing them of going after the rapper because of her celebrity status.
“As I told you during our one virtual meeting, Nicki would never pay a dime to your client. I was correct. You ultimately were forced to surrender without you or your client receiving a penny,” Judd Burstein, Minaj’s attorney, wrote in an email obtained by NBC News.
The lawyer said Minaj, whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj, paid over $300,000 to defend herself in the case and plans on fighting to recuperate those legal fees.
Hough’s attorney said in response: “Ms. Maraj would be foolish to file sanctions against Ms. Hough.”
Hough filed the lawsuit in August. Blackburn said his client decided to come forward because Minaj and Petty “came after her.”
“What they did to me and my family wasn’t OK. It wasn’t right,” Hough said in a September interview on the daytime talk show “The Real.”
“And it doesn’t matter how much money you have, it doesn’t matter what your status is, you can’t intimidate people to make things go better for you.”
She also discussed the alleged rape, saying in the interview and in the lawsuit that Petty sexually assaulted her in September 1994 as she was on her way to school in New York.
Petty accepted a plea deal in the case and was convicted of first-degree attempted rape. He served nearly four years in state prison before he was released.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
