Nicki Minaj brother found guilty of raping an 11 year old on long island multiple times

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Prosecutors had alleged he began abusing the girl when she was 11, raping her repeatedly while her mother was at work.


Jurors on Thursday convicted rapper Nicki Minaj’s brother of sexually assaulting his former stepdaughter in a Baldwin home, after a monthlong trial in which the defense claimed the allegations were invented to try to extort $25 million from the man’s famous sister.

Jelani Maraj, 38, of Baldwin, now faces up to life in prison following his convictions in Nassau County Court on predatory sexual assault on a child and endangering the welfare of a child.

Court officers took Maraj, who had been free on bond and showed no emotion after the verdict, into custody after State Supreme Court Justice Robert McDonald ordered him held without bail in Nassau County’s jail.

Prosecutors had told jurors Maraj began abusing the victim when she was 11, raping her repeatedly between April and November 2015 while her mother was at work.

Now 14, the victim testified Maraj would call her “his puppet” and tell her she had “no say” in what he did to her. She said Maraj slapped her if she refused his sexual advances, threatening that she would be taken away from her mother if she told anyone about the abuse.

The defense had claimed the girl’s mother had beaten her and her younger brother to get them to go along with a fabricated sex abuse tale the woman made up in an attempted $25 million shakedown of Maraj’s celebrity musician sister.