Nicki Minaj and Kennth Petty’s accuser refiling her harassment lawsuit in California after it was dismissed in New York.
Days after she filed a motion of withdrawal to remove Nicki Minaj as a defendant in her case against Kenneth Petty, Jennifer Hough’s legal team has signaled that they would be filing a lawsuit in California naming Minaj as a defendant.
Hough is suing Nicki Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty, for harassment and is seeking $20 million in damages for the trauma she says they inflicted by their actions that sought to pressure her into recanting her previous statement in a rape case against Petty back in 1994.
The Attorneys for Hough last week dropped her as a defendant, but on Thursday, they explained that the team did that for a reason noting that the rapper was only dismissed because they plan to refile the same accusations in California.
The case came up for hearing on Thursday in a Manhattan federal court where Hough’s attorneys explained the reason for the voluntary withdrawal.
According to Rolling Stone, Hough’s attorneys relayed to the judge that they believe California was a more appropriate jurisdiction as Minaj lives there.
Meanwhile, in a statement after the hearing, Nicki’s lawyer Judd Burstein called the move a “frivolous gambit” by Hough’s attorneys to avoid sanctions.
In a letter after the withdrawal, Burstein had requested sanctions be imposed on Hough’s Lawyer Tyrone Blackburn and his team for filing the “baseless” claim after Minaj.
Burstein had crisp words for Blackburn and his team.
“As usual, they have decided to adopt a tactic without bothering to research the law,” said Burstein, who is lead counsel for Minaj. “Had they done so, they would realize that re-filing their frivolous action in another jurisdiction will only result in another court sanctioning them.”
Blackburne, on the other hand, confirmed to Rolling Stone the team’s next moves adding that a new lawsuit will see “different causes of action” and potentially a new, unnamed defendant.
He also addressed Minaj’s attorney Burstein as he insinuated that the lawyer was overcharging Minaj with his many motions to file sanctions.
“If I were Ms. Maraj I would pay close attention to the bill she receives from her counsel,” Blackburne said, using Minaj’s legal name. “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.”
In the meantime, the lawsuit, which was originally filed in New York, will go on with Petty as a defendant. Hough, who was the victim in a rape case against Petty in 1994, claims that Petty and his celebrity wife bullied her into recanting her story and into staying quiet about the allegations.
She claims that she and her family have been harassed and intimidated by Minaj and Petty, who attempted to pay her to recant the story. Minaj and Petty, in their filed defense, denied the accusations.
Both have strongly denied the accusations.
