Nicki Minaj’s Husband’s Balks At Feds Bid To Delay His Sex Offender Trial

Source: WENN/Avalon / WENN

Federal prosecutors want to delay Nicki Minaj’s husband’s trial for failure to register as a sex offender – but he isn’t having it.

Lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed papers April 27 asking the judge to delay Kenneth Petty’s criminal trial, which was supposed to start April 28, for six weeks because of public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, but they acknowledged that Petty was against the move.

The feds said that L.A.’s lockdown meant that they wouldn’t be able to properly move forward on the case; for example, they couldn’t guarantee that jurors would stay socially distanced, and one key witness from the U.S. Marshals would have to travel from New York to California to testify in the case, but would violate nationwide travel restrictions.

However, they acknowledged that Petty himself, who turned 42 earlier this month, was eager to get the trial over and done with and was opposed to delaying it any longer.

In February 2020, a Grand Jury indicted Petty on a felony charge of failure to register as a sex offender. The feds said Petty had been living in L.A. with Minaj for about six months without registering his status, which is a requirement under the terms of his attempted rape conviction from the 1990s. Petty has pleaded not guilty and is out on a $100,000 bond. If he’s convicted, he faces up to a decade behind bars.

A judge hadn’t yet ruled on the feds’ motion.