brought against him in 2021. Now, Hough’s legal team has submitted new evidence from her original 1994 case with the Queens County Supreme Court—in which Petty ultimately pleaded guilty to attempted rape in the first degree.
When asked what she hopes to demonstrate with these new documents, Hough told The Daily Beast that she “just wanted to show proof that I didn’t lie on this man. I did exactly what I was supposed to do. When it happened, I went to the police. I went to the hospital. I had a rape kit done.” According to a status report Blackburn filed to the court at the end of May, Hough and Petty were unable to settle during private mediation. The case has now entered discovery with a fact-finding deadline set for Dec. 12, according to the case’s docket report. An in-person status conference is set for Sept. 27.
“All she had was her lived experience,” Blackburn said. “… And her lived experience is corroborated by the evidence from 1994—the evidence that was taken the day of the incident. Not a week later. Not two days later, not a day later.” An indictment with the handwritten date Sept. 21, 1994 lists five counts against Petty: rape in the first degree, sexual abuse in the first degree, unlawful imprisonment in the second degree, assault in the second degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.
At school, the letter continues, a friend told Hough to “go to the office and tell them I was raped, because even if I had sex with him the first time I didn’t want to have sex the second time.”