Nicki Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty has been placed on one-year house arrest for failing to register as a sex offender. Petty, 43, pleaded guilty on Thursday during a virtual hearing with the US District Court for the Central District of California, which oversees both central and southern parts of the state, according to court records obtained by PEOPLE.
He was facing up to 10 years behind bars with supervised release but will now live out his sentence at the couple’s multi-million dollar mansion in Calabasas instead. Petty also received a $55,000 (£46,000) fine and will have three years of probation, according to the US Attorney’s Office via CBS Los Angeles.
Petty had been convicted of first-degree attempted rape of a 16-year-old back in 1995 and served four years in prison. After he and Minaj moved to California in 2019, he failed to register as a sex offender within the required five-day period.
During his trial, prosecutors had urged the judge to sentence Petty to further prison time. They had recommended 15 months in jail and five years of probation, contending that being placed under house arrest in the gated community mansion he lives with Minaj was insufficient punishment.
Petty’s victim Jennifer Hough, filed a lawsuit in August 2021, claiming that Minaj and Petty had threatened her into recanting her accusation of rape — which Hough said occurred in 1994 when she was 16 years old.
In 1995, Petty was convicted of first-degree attempted rape and sentenced to 18 to 54 months but spent four years in prison. In her lawsuit, Hough also accused the couple of intentionally inflicting emotional distress and alleged sexual assault and battery, referring to the 1994 incident.
