Nicki Minaj is going after the attorney who represented her husband’s rape accuser for his “disgraceful” litigation against her.
Minaj and her attorney Judd Burstein are requesting that Tyrone Blackburn be sanctioned for wrongly pursuing legal action against the rapper. Blackburn represented Jennifer Hough in a lawsuit filed against Minaj and her husband, Kenneth Petty. Hough claims that Petty raped her decades ago, a crime he was convicted of. However, Hough sued the couple last August for allegedly threatening her and trying to intimidate her into recanting her story so that Petty would be removed from the sex offender’s list.
The “Super Bass” rapper says that Blackburn crossed the line when he accused her of being a member of the Queens street gang, “Makk Ballers.” According to the motion for sanctions filed on Monday, Blackburn had “no evidence” to support Minaj being a gang member. Furthermore, her being in a gang was “irrelevant to the issue of whether a default judgment should be entered against Mr. Petty.”
Burstein also has a bone to pick with Blackburn, claiming that he tried to ruin his reputation by claiming that Burstein had a “sick obsession” with the wife of one of Hough’s former attorneys. Burstein said the claim was “designed solely to harass him and tarnish his reputation.”
Minaj and Burstein want Blackburn to face stiff penalties and a referral to the federal court’s Attorney Disciplinary Committee. They also want Blackburn to pay for the $300,000 in legal fees that the Grammy-nominated rapper incurred while defending herself.
In his response filing, Blackburn said he had evidence to support his claims, including Minaj belonging to the gang.
Hough voluntarily withdrew Minaj from the lawsuit in January. However, the case against Petty remains open. The suit was supposed to be re-filed in California, but that doesn’t appear to have happened.
