Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty
Jennifer Hough dropped her $20 million lawsuit against Nicki Minaj on Jan. 12, but not because she was giving up. Hough only dropped it so she could refile it in the correct jurisdiction. According to Rolling Stone, Hough’s lawyer, Seven N. Gordon, told a federal magistrate that the lawsuit was withdrawn in New York so it could be refiled in California, where Minaj and her husband Kenneth Petty live.
Besides suing Petty and Minaj for harassment and intimidation, Hough also sued Petty for sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress related to his 1995 conviction for attempted rape. Her harassment case being consolidated with the other lawsuit will depend on the result of her request for a default judgment against Petty.
“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,” Minaj’s lawyer Judd Burstein told Rolling Stone. “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.”
Hough claimed that after Petty married Minaj, she began being harassed and offered monetary compensation in exchange for her recant of her rape accusations against him.
“Them sending people to negotiate numbers as far as money is concerned with family members, and Nicki is the one who personally reached out to me in regards to helping her, helping them and this situation,” she said during an appearance on The Real. “And then the threats that I received because I kept saying no to every offer, every suggestion. The last incident was when one of their associates put $20,000 in my lap and I still kept saying no. The last message I received was about how I should have taken the money because they’re going to use the money to put on my head.”
Minaj said she did indeed speak with Hough but never tried to intimidate or bribe her into releasing a recant statement.
