By Yusuf Boluwatife
Trinidadian-rapper, Kenneth Petty is being sued by a woman he was convicted of attempting to rape in 1994.
According to US media reports, the woman, now 43, filed a lawsuit alleging that the couple harassed her to try to make her take back her claims.
Petty had served a little less than 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted rape of the then teenager and was out on parole.
Last year, he was arrested for failure to register as a sex offender. In the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the woman alleges that Ms Minaj offered her $500,000 (£360,000) via an intermediary in return for recanting her accusations against Petty.
The lawsuit claims that, shortly after Petty’s arrest in 2020, the intermediary gave the rapper the woman’s number. Ms Minaj is alleged to have called her and offered to fly her and her family to Los Angeles if she could “help” her. The offer was, however declined.
She also said that Nicki Minaj offered to have her publicist draft her recantation statement which she refused blatantly.
The woman further claimed that within days of rejecting the offers, she and her family “suffered an onslaught of harassing calls and unsolicited visits”.
She said she had not been able to work since May 2020 “due to severe depression, paranoia, constant moving, harassment and threats” from the celebrity couple and their associates. She seek unspecified damages as she have been in hiding since 2020. Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj’s legal team hasn’t responded officially to the allegations.
