Nicki Minaj’s 44-year-old husband, Kenneth Petty, may be looking at spending over a year behind bars after pleading guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in California back in 2021. Insider reported.
In the filing, federal prosecutors said, “having previously been convicted of attempted rape, defendant knowingly failed to register as a sex offender upon moving to California.”
In 1995, Petty was found guilty of first-degree attempted rape of then 16-year-old Jennifer Hough and was registered as a sex offender in the state of New York When Minaj and Petty moved to California in 2019 while they were dating, the case moved there as well. Prosecutors were still monitoring the case and noticed that Petty didn’t register as a sex offender in his new state.
“The timing of defendant’s lapse in registration is concerning, given that it occurred when defendant began dating his wife, quit his job, moved to Los Angeles, and adopted an affluent lifestyle,” the prosecutors stated in the filing.
They pointed out that before he got into a relationship with Minaj, he complied with the registration process.
“Defendant has been completing sex offender registration documents for nearly 20 years,” they said in the filing. “Over the course of two decades, he was repeatedly warned that if he moved to another state, it was his responsibility to follow any local, city, state, federal, or international laws regarding registration.”
Prosecutors requested that Petty face 15 years in jail and pay a fine of $55,000. According to TMZ, they are also refusing to allow him to serve his sentence in the comfort of his own home, stating that serving time in the couple’s Calabasas mansion is more along the lines of a luxury than punishment.
Hough sued the couple in New York for “intentional infliction of emotional distress and sexual assault,” claiming the couple tried to persuade her to renounce the allegations by paying her $500,000 and intimidating her, in an effort to get Petty off the registry.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 6.
