Entertainment
Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, arrested for not registering as sex offender
Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, has been arrested following an indictment that he failed to register as a sex offender.
Kenneth Petty, 41, turned himself into federal custody Wednesday after failing to register as a sex offender in California, the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed.
“Kenneth Petty self-surrendered to the U.S. Marshals in Los Angeles today,” spokesperson Lynzey Donahue said in a statement Wednesday.
Petty moved to Los Angeles last July before tying the knot with Minaj in October, but according to court documents, he knowingly failed to register as a sex offender as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
According to SORNA, a sex offender is “required to update their registration in each jurisdiction they reside, are employed, or attend school.” Failure to register is considered a federal crime.
Petty is a registered Level 2 sex offender on New York State’s Sex Offender Registry. He was assessed as posing a medium risk of committing another offense.
According to the registry, in April 1995, Petty was convicted of attempted first-degree rape in connection with a 1994 assault that occurred when both he and the victim were 16. It also notes that he used a knife or cutting instrument during the commission of the crime. He was sentenced to between 18 and 54 months in state prison. According to the New York State Department of Corrections records, he served just under four years and was released in January 1999.
The DOC website says that Petty went back to prison in 2006 after a first-degree manslaughter conviction and served nearly seven years before being released on parole in May 2013.
When an Instagram commenter noted that he would have been a teenager at the time of the attempted rape and speculated the victim “must’ve been a white girl,” Minaj reportedly offered clarification, stating in December 2018,
“He was 15, she was 16… in a relationship. But go awf Internet. y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”
In October, Minaj, 37, announced her marriage to Petty after one year of dating by sharing an Instagram video of matching “Mr. and Mrs.” mugs and coordinating “Bride” and “Groom” baseball caps. She captioned the video with her new legal name and their official wedding date: “Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty 10•21•19.”
Petty’s arrest is not the only legal trouble Minaj’s family has faced recently.
In January, the rapper’s older brother Jelani Maraj was sentenced 25 years to life in prison for predatory sexual assault.
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