Nicki Minaj Stands by Husband Kenneth Petty Who Was Denied Request to Get Off Sex Offender List

Nicki Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty tried to have his name removed from New York’s sex offender list, but was denied.

Recent paperwork from Brooklyn Federal Court revealed Petty’s failed attempt to have his name taken off the registry, The Daily News reported. Petty was convicted of attempted rape in 1995 for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl the prior year.

A lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court claimed Petty never got the chance to argue being labeled a medium-risk sex offender. His lawyer, Alan Gerson, says Petty wasn’t aware of a 2004 hearing to challenge his status and claims his signature was forged on a document regarding the proceeding.

At the time of the hearing, Petty was serving seven years in state prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder. However, a court transcript claimed that Petty was present for the hearing and agreed to be listed as a level 2 sex offender.

“We’re not going to contest it,” Petty’s lawyer at the time, Jennifer Michaelson, said in the Dec. 14, 2004 hearing in Queens Supreme Court, according to the court transcript. “I have spoken to the defendant and I’ve explained to him what’s happening here and he is satisfied with the Level 2.”

Public records show Petty wasn’t in state prison until 2006, after his manslaughter conviction in a 2002 homicide. However, Petty’s lawyer claims he was being held on Rikers Island at the time of the 2004 hearing.

On Thursday, Petty requested that his lawsuit be withdrawn. Petty’s lawyer expects the case to be formally withdrawn “in the next week or two.”

Now, lawyers for Petty claim he was young at the time of the hearing and likely confused about whether or not he actually was in attendance or what the hearing was for.

“We were just going according to his statement, what he’s telling us, that he wasn’t present,” Israel Dov, a paralegal at Gershon’s firm said. “He still says that he wasn’t there and maybe someone is putting this together just to get him. I don’t think that he purposely lied to us. I just believe maybe he forgot.”

Last July, Petty was sentenced to three years probation and one year of home confinement for failing to register as a sex offender when he relocated to California to be with his rap superstar wife, The L.A. Times reported.

Nicki Minaj has stood by her husband, despite the criticism she’s received for being married to a registered sex offender. In 2018, she seemingly defended her husband’s on Instagram in a comment that said, “He was 15, she was 16 … in a relationship. But go awf Internet.”