Kenneth Petty sues to be removed from sex offender registry
Kenneth Petty, famous for being married to singer Nicki Minaj, is suing the State of New York to get his name removed from the State’s sex offender registry. The lawsuit, filed yesterday in Federal Court, alleges that Petty was added to the registry without being afforded any opportunity to challenge his placement in violation of his due process rights.
There are more than one million individuals registered on sex offender registries in the United States. These individuals are subjected to shaming, loss of privacy, restricted residence, restricted employment, restricted travel, in-person registration requirements and numerous other harms, long after completing whatever sentence was imposed upon them. No other criminal offense, including murder, carries such harsh consequences.
All are forced to register without their consent. Most have no opportunity to contest their present dangerousness. Many, including thousands in Florida, were added to a registry that was enacted years after their offenses were committed and could not have possibly contemplated the consequences of their pleas because they didn’t exist!
Unfortunately, most on the registry are chronically unemployed or under-employed and cannot afford to challenge their placement. Not so in Mr. Petty’s case. We are hopeful that Mr. Petty has the resources to bring a proper legal challenge and the notoriety to expose the injustice of public registration.
A copy of his complaint can be found here: Kenneth Petty – Complaint
Is this going to create bad precedent? FAC Legal how do you like the complaint?
Is there any way Kenneth can be contacted by FAC to make sure his case has the proper contacts with knowledgeable information so that this is not just pushed aside and the ruling is not just made considering this as an exception instead of a illegal policy ruling.
If he wants to reach out to us he can email us at info@floridaactioncommittee.org.
Since the motion cites no case law, I assume the government’s response will cite tons of it. Other than that, I like how succinct it is.
NYS SORA provides for some due process that was not afforded to him, I guess they are saying.
It’s a complaint, not a motion. For a complaint, this should be sufficient.
Upon reading the complaint, Mr. Petty seems to have a winnable case. Most likely however, a win would only be for Mr. Petty and no one else. Even though a precedence may be established, it would seem to help only those in NYC.
Sad truth is registrants with means to fight only care about fighting for themselves they don’t spend time researching how the regestry effects society as a whole they just want to distance themselves from the label and stigma we all face. Advocate Organisations are typically used by those of us who have little if anything besides time to lend to our own cause Mr Perry’s wife has money so I doubt he or she will be reaching out to any advocacy group anytime soon
why haven’t FAC had anything positive or changed during the decades that it has been fighting to have things changed and all the money raised to fight it with?
What do you mean?
We’ve defeated a ton of bills, we won the Internet identifier challenge, we have three lawsuits going presently. The only case that was lost was the Miami-Dade residency restriction, but I don’t know of any other negatives.
Fred
I understand we all want the registry and restrictions to go away today; however that’s not possible. We must trust FAC and their legal team to find the best plaintiffs and cases to create change. It’s important that advocates and their families go to Tallahassee showing opposition to proposed bills. Florida registrants need to show up, stand up and speak out because FAC can’t do this by themselves. We might not get the results we want; but we must not never give in or up to our oppressors.