Kenneth Petty, Nicki Minaj’s husband, avoided a 10-year prison sentence after failing to register as a sex offender when he moved to California with his wife.
Petty, 44, will be forced to stay in his multimillion-dollar Calabasas mansion under home detention for the next year and fined $55,000. In 2019, he married Minaj, 39.
After being charged with failing to register as a sex offender, Petty was arrested in March 2020.
According to records obtained by PEOPLE, Petty pleaded not guilty and posted $100,000 bail at the time.
When he was pulled over by the Beverly Hills Police Department on Nov. 15, 2019, the department discovered he was registered as a sex offender in New York but not in California, where he now resides.
Petty must register as a sex offender because he was convicted in 1995 of first-degree attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl. He was sentenced to 18 to 54 months in prison, but he only served four years. In New York, Petty is a level two registered offender, which means he poses a “moderate risk of repeat offense.”
According to court documents filed in June 2019, federal prosecutors wanted to sentence Pretty because he purposefully failed to register as a sex offender, as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
A sex offender is “required to update their registration in each jurisdiction in which they reside, work, or attend school,” according to SORNA. Failure to register is a federal offense.
Jennifer Hough sued Petty and Minaj in the Eastern District of New York in August 2021, accusing them of attempting to intimidate her into recanting her rape accusation.
Petty and Minaj, who married in October 2019, were also accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress, according to the lawsuit, and the couple allegedly offered Hough up to $500,000 to withdraw her claims.
