Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, has been arrested for failing to register as a sex offender after moving from New York to California.
As Pitchfork reports, New York State’s Sex Offender Registry require a sex offender to notify the Division of Criminal Justice Services within 10 days of any change of address. Petty moved to California in July 2019, but was not registered as of November 2019 when he was pulled over by officers in Beverly Hills.
U.S. Marshals took Petty into custody on Wednesday and charged him with failing to register as a sex offender, TMZ reports. If convicted, he faces a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Petty was released on $20,000 bond and is due back in court on March 6th.
Update – March 10th: The L.A. District Attorney dropped state charges against Petty because he is facing similar federal charges. Additionally, on March 9th Petty officially registered as a sex offender in California.
According to public records, Petty was convicted in 1995 of first-degree attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl. Petty, who was also 16 at the time of the assault, ended up serving four years in prison. In the mid-2000s, Petty was convicted of a second felony, first-degree manslaughter, for which he served as a seven-year prison sentence.
Earlier this year, Minaj’s older brother, Jelani Maraj, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after being found guilty of raping his stepdaughter.
