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Kenneth Petty, husband to rap icon Nicki Minaj, was sentenced on Wednesday (June 6) after failing to register as a sex offender upon moving to California in 2019. The 44-year-old received one year of home confinement along with three years probation and a fine of $55,000, per NBC News.
The sentencing comes just six months after Queens-raised woman Jennifer Hough voluntarily dropped a harassment lawsuit against Petty. In 1994, Hough accused Petty of rape when he was 16-years-old, to which he served four and a half years in a New York state prison. Since his release, Petty is supposed to register as a sex offender whenever he moves.
In 2006, the music executive plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, ultimately serving seven. After moving to California in July 2019, it was during a traffic stop that Beverly Hills authorities learned Petty was not registered as a sex offender. Being indicted in March 2020, in September 2021, Petty plead guilty to one count of failure to register as a sex offender.
Petty was last seen publicly with Nicki Minaj during the rapper's headlining performance at Essence Music Festival last Saturday (July 2) while holding their 2-year-old son. Married to Petty since 2018 after the two reconnected in 2013, Minaj has been vocal about her husband's legalities on social media. Minaj became a first-time mother after having her son in September 2020, but has not revealed his name publicly, affectionately calling him "Papa Bear" on social media and interviews.