Jelani Maraj, brother of the rap star Nicki MinajOn Monday, he received a sentence of a minimum of 25 years in jail and a maximum of life imprisonment in a New York state court for repeatedly violating his 11-year-old stepdaughter.
According to local media, Judge Robert McDonald, of the Supreme Court of Nassau County, lashed out at Maraj, who said that he had ‘ruined’ the child’s life by raping her ‘over and over again’.
The sentence was known two years after a grand jury found guilty of predatory sexual assault and harm to a minor after the judicial process began in 2015.
The case reached the courts after the victim’s brother witnessed one of the sexual assaults on the child and informed the representatives of his educational center.
Minaj did not appear in court to show support for his brother, but the defendant’s lawyer, David Schwartz, read a 2016 letter that the singer wrote to try to get a minor sentence.
In the letter, Minaj described his brother as: ‘The most patient, kind, authentic and generous man I know.’
Maraj, on the other hand, asked for mercy during the hearing of his sentence, although he insisted on his innocence.
‘I would like to apologize for the damage caused. I had a problem with alcohol, ‘said the accused.
Before being sentenced, the victim said in court that the abuses suffered led her to want to take her life and that she felt she had “no voice.”
During the judicial process, in 2017, he claimed to have been repeatedly raped by Maraj in his family residence in the New York town of Baldwin during his mother’s marriage to the defendant.
Maraj has always denied the accusations and has ensured that the case is related to attempts to extort his famous sister.
Following the conviction, Schwartz said his client plans to file an appeal, even though previous attempts to annul the sentence have already been dismissed.
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