Complex reports that Kenneth Petty, Nicki Minaj’s husband since 2019, has pled guilty to failing to register as a sex offender. Petty was convicted of first-degree attempted rape in 1995, serving out his four-year sentence and registering as a sex offender in New York. However, when the couple moved from New York to California after making their marriage official, he did not update authorities in his new home state.
He was arrested in November 2019 after a traffic stop when police realized he hadn’t registered and was arrested again in March 2020 for federal charges even after registering that month. He pled “not guilty” at the time, perhaps in hopes that he could get his original conviction overturned, but now faces a maximum sentence of ten years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release. His sentencing has been scheduled for January 24, 2022.
His efforts toward overturning his original conviction included suing the State of New York City’s Criminal Justice Services Department in the hopes of having his name removed from the sex offenders registry, on which state law mandates he must be registered for life. However, his other pursuit, getting his original victim Jennifer Hough to recant her testimony, has only earned him a lawsuit from Hough, claiming that his and Nicki’s representatives have harassed her since 2018, trying to bribe her and even making threats through lawyers and fans.
