kenneth petty

TMZ reports Jennifer Hough, the victim in Kenneth Petty’s 1995 rape case, is suing Petty and his spouse Nicki Minaj for harassment. She’s filed documents accusing the couple of harassing her to recant her initial testimony despite Petty completing his sentence of 18-54 months in prison. However, when the celebrity couple moved from New York to California after getting married in 2019, Petty apparently failed to register as a sex offender, prompting his arrest in March of 2020.

While federal charges against him were eventually dropped. That hasn’t stopped Minaj and other associates from contacting Hough, asking her to recant her testimony. After declining an offer to fly to LA in exchange for doing so, Hough said she and her family “suffered an onslaught of harassing calls and unsolicited visits.” She had previously detailed the alleged harassment in a Daily Beast profile earlier this year. She said she was forced to relocate multiple times, while the couple continued to offer bribes and send lawyers to her home. Now, she’s suing Nicki Minaj and Petty for intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment, and witness intimidation.

For their part, Minaj and Petty have continued to vehemently deny her accusations, with Nicki claiming that Petty was “wrongfully accused.”

In June, Nicki Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty is due to stand trial on federal charges of failing to register as a sex offender upon moving from New York to California in 2019. Now, the victim of his original sexual assault case says she’s being harassed by both the family and fans of Nicki Minaj as they attempt to bully her into recanting the 26-year-old charges. In a lengthy story in The Daily Beast, the victim speaks out.

The charges stem from a 1995 incident when Petty and his victim were both 16; Petty was convicted of one count of attempted rape in the first degree, assault in the second degree, unlawful imprisonment in the second degree, and criminal possession of a weapon. He served out his sentence — which included a 2006 charge of murder in the second degree that he pleaded down to manslaughter — receiving his release in 2013 and marrying Nicki in 2019. However, he surrendered to US Marshals in LA after a warrant was issued for failing to update his sex offender status after moving.

According to The Daily Beast’s profile the victim — referred to as Jennifer — a campaign of ongoing harassment from people claiming to be associated with the Pettys, from offers of hush money to thinly-veiled threats, prompting her to move no less than three times since Petty’s arrest last year. She says she even received a phone call from Nicki Minaj herself to discuss a non-disclosure agreement, disconnecting the phone number later after Jennifer seemed reluctant to accept the offer.

A man connected to both parties — referred to in the report as “Barry” — continued to reach out to Jennifer to recant her original statements from 1995, offering a $20,000 bribe to sign a letter recanting. The story was mirrored in a post on Facebook from Jennifer’s adult daughter Kenya, who declined to comment for the story. US Marshals eventually reached out to Jennifer after being tipped off by an online acquaintance that she was allegedly being intimidated by the Pettys.

Jennifer moved again after Kenya was approached at a club by another man claiming to be an acquaintance of her mother and Petty’s, making her feel threatened and convincing Jennifer that her daughter was unsafe with her. Others connected with Petty are noted as also making threats on social media, mostly via gossip accounts, which have also been inundated with angry comments from Nicki Minaj fans.

You can read the full story here.