Kenneth Petty, who is married to Nicki Minaj, was sentenced on Wednesday, July 6, to one year of home confinement for failing to register as a sex offender.
Petty, 44, also received three years of probation and a fine of $55,000, according to NBC. The music executive pleaded guilty in September 2021 to one count of failure to register as a sex offender.
That same month, Us Weekly confirmed that Minaj’s husband could face up to 10 years in prison after he failed to register when he moved to California in 2019. The New York native’s charge stems from a 1995 conviction for attempted rape. Petty served four and a half years in prison following an incident that occurred in 1994 with a 16-year-old girl. After his release, Petty must register as a sex offender whenever he moves.
Petty’s legal issues continued when he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in 2006 after shooting a man four years prior. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and served seven.
Following his release in May 2013, Petty reconnected with Minaj, 39, after the couple previously dated. The rapper went public with Petty in 2018 and they tied the knot less than one year later.
Ahead of their nuptials, the performer defended Petty after her fans questioned his previous run-ins with the law. “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship,” Minaj replied to a fan via Instagram in December 2018. “But go awf, Internet. Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”
Minaj later praised the influence that her husband has on her state of mind. “Whenever I’m down, I can have one conversation with my husband and it will get me back where I need to be mentally,” she shared on Queen Radio in February 2020. “He’s been a really great force in my life. I’ve known him since I was 17, and I feel a level of comfort with him that I hadn’t felt before to just be myself and to share who I am.”
Four months later, Minaj announced that she was pregnant with the duo’s first child. They became parents in September 2020 with the arrival of their son. “I think motherhood has made me see more good in people, more good in the universe. It makes you more of a forgiving person,” the songwriter said on The Late Late Show With James Corden in February. “When I look at my son, I’m reminded that I am so blessed.”
She added: “I realized, for so many women, this is their dream. Their dream is to have a child and not everybody gets that blessing. So when you have a little baby, you are reminded every day like, ‘Oh my God. Thank you God for this little gift.'”
