Nicki Minaj is set to take the stand at her brother’s child rape trial and tell jurors that the mother of the alleged victim offered to make the charges disappear if the rapper handed over $25million.
According to Dailymail, an attorney for Minaj’s 38-year-old brother, Jelani Maraj, told jurors at Nassau County Court in New York on Thursday that the rape charges against his client were all part of an elaborate plot to extort money from Nicki.
Maraj is accused of raping his 11-year-old stepdaughter multiple times in 2015 soon after he married her mother Jacqueline Robinson.
During the opening arguments on Thursday, Maraj’s attorney David Schwartz told jurors that Robinson hatched a plan to marry the accused so she could try and get money out of his famous sisterHe added that Robinson forced the alleged victim and her younger brother to lie to authorities about the rape allegations as part of her extortion plan.
Schwartz said Robinson allegedly told Minaj: ‘I can make the charges go away for $25million.’
It is not clear when Minaj will take to the stand but she will be the defense’s star witness, according to TMZ.
Prosecutors, however, gave harrowing details of the alleged sexual abuse during their opening arguments, saying Maraj raped the sixth-grader as often as four times a week for eight months.
Assistant District Attorney Emma Slane told jurors that the girl’s brother, who was then eight-year-old, witnessed some of the abuse.
The boy had told child services that his step-father had beaten him after he walked into a bedroom and saw him raping the girl, according to the prosecutor. Slane said child services alerted police who then found Maraj’s semen on the groin area of the girl’s pajama pants. The prosecutor told jurors that Maraj had threatened the girl and told her she would end up in foster care in she told anyone about the abuse.
But the defense has claimed that the girl’s mother planted Maraj’s DNA on the pajamas herself and made sure police found them.
‘Why would (Robinson) lie and force her children to lie? I can give you 25 million reasons why,’ Schwartz told jurors.
‘Jackie became obsessed with Nicki Minaj – getting her hands on her money.
‘An evil Jackie targeted him… trying to get him to marry her, and then just four months after they were married, we have this.’
Months before his arrest, Maraj married Robinson in a $30,000 wedding that was paid for by his superstar younger sister.
Robinson filed for divorce just days before the couple would have celebrated their one-year anniversary.
When Maraj was arrested in December 2015, Minaj posted his $100,000 bond.
Emeh Achanga,the CEO of the Miss Petite Nigeria Brand is a lawyer turned blogger. She is very passionate about writing, with several publications and awards to her credit .She is currently working on publishing a collection of short stories which are basically a memoir about her exciting true experiences.
