Nicki Minaj's Husband Kenneth Petty Charged with Failing to Register as Sex Offender in California: Report

Kenneth Petty — who spent four years in prison after being convicted of attempted rape — is required to register as a sex offender for life

Nicki Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty has reportedly been arrested.

Petty turned himself in to U.S. Marshals Wednesday after being indicted for failing to register as a sex offender, TMZ reported.

The 41-year-old initially faced legal trouble after being pulled over by the Beverly Hills Police Department on Nov. 15, when the department determined he was registered as a sex offender in New York — but not in California, where he now resides, TMZ reported. He was reportedly arrested and charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney at the time and released on a $20,000 bond.

Kenneth Petty
Kenneth Petty. State of California

The Los Angeles County District Attorney referred PEOPLE to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment. A rep for Minaj also did not immediately respond.

Petty is required to register as a sex offender for life after he was convicted for the first-degree attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl in 1995. He was sentenced to 18 to 54 months but spent four years in prison. Petty is a level two registered offender in New York, which means he’s considered a “moderate risk of repeat offense.”

Nicki-Minaj-Kenny-Petty
Kenneth “Zoo” Petty and Nicki Minaj. Johnny Nunez/Getty

Seven years after the attempted rape conviction, Petty was charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of a man named Lamont Robinson in 2002, according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Blast.

The outlet reported that Petty pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge in March 2006 and served seven years in prison after being sentenced to 10. Petty was released in May 2013, and had been on supervised release for five years until May of this year, records accessed by PEOPLE show.

In 2018, after a fan criticized Minaj, 37, for dating a sex offender, the rapper defended her then-boyfriend.

“He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf Internet,” she wrote back. “Y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”

Last July, Minaj clapped back once again on her Queen Radio podcast.

“When a person is with a n— that loved them before they had a dime in their pocket? How do you not understand that? How do you not understand happiness vs clout?” Minaj said on the episode, according to E! News.

“How f—ing dare you talk about lowering standards,” she added, before telling haters to “wake up” and realize that love should not be based on materialistic desires and circumstances.

“It’s the truth, money cannot buy me happiness and good sex,” Minaj said.

Minaj and Petty started dating in 2018 and tied the knot in October 2019.

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