R. Kelly sentenced to 30 years in prison after conviction for sex-trafficking

In this Sept. 17, 2019, file photo, R. Kelly appears during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago.

(Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool, File) A federal judge sentenced R. Kelly to 30 years in prison. Kelly, 55, was convicted on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in September.

He has been detained in Brooklyn since his arrest on the charges in 2019. A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced R. Kelly to 30 years in prison.

The R&B star was found guilty in September of racketeering and sex trafficking charges stemming from a decades-long practice of recruiting and grooming girls and young women for illegal sex. Judge Ann Donnelly, who oversaw his trial, gave him the 30-year sentence — plus an additional five years of supervised release and a $100,000 fine — during a hearing where seven of his victims spoke about suffering under his control. Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been detained in Brooklyn, New York, since his arrest in 2019.

Prosecutors previously asked the judge to sentence Kelly, 55, to a minimum of 25 years in prison. Attorney Jennifer Bonjean — who joined the case after Kelly’s conviction — told the Chicago Tribune she requested a sentence of 10 years, the mandatory minimum. Bonjean, who has represented a number of high-profile clients accused of sex crimes, including Bill Cosby and sex cult founder Keith Raniere, filed her request under seal.

Recruitment, abuse, and blackmailThe prosecution called more than 40 witnesses to testify in Kelly’s summer 2020 trial, which spanned over a month at US District Court in Brooklyn. The arrest, conviction, and now sentencing for Kelly marks a dramatic downfall of a man who was once considered “The King of R&B. ” Numerous women — and two men — who testified against him at trial spoke that he lured them into sexual slavery after promising to help their careers in the music industry — promises he almost never kept.

Women, many of whom were teenagers when they met Kelly, described how Kelly directed them to have sex with him and each other, and how the singer obsessively took videos of the sexual encounters. R. Kelly listens as witness “Stephanie” testifies during Kelly’s sex abuse trial at Brooklyn’s Federal District Court in a courtroom sketch in New York, U.

S. , August 26, 2021. REUTERS/Jane RosenbergSome accusers told the jury that Kelly blackmailed them, by forcing them to write letters containing embarrassing information and lies, which he saved in case they ever spoke out against him.

The accusers also testified about the control Kelly maintained over their lives, requiring them to seek his permission to use the bathroom and forbidding them from looking at other men. When they stepped out of line, women testified, Kelly would be furious and punish them. One woman said he once forced her to get an abortion, and made women make embarrassing videos of themselves, including smearing feces on their faces.

The trial also unveiled new information about the nature of Kelly’s short-lived sham marriage with Aaliyah, the R&B singer who Kelly mentored from the age of 12. Their marriage was annulled less than a year after they were wed. Former employees, an accuser, and a minister told the jury that Kelly bribed an Illinois government employee to obtain a fake ID for Aaliyah so that he could make the marriage happen as part of a scheme to get her an abortion.

Aaliyah died in 2001, at 22, after the plane she was traveling in crashed near the Bahamas. Experts previously told Insider that the operation Kelly ran was a sex cult, in which he became an “object of worship” to those he controlled. Another trial to comeKelly, who has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, is also awaiting an August trial for a federal sex crimes case in Chicago.

In that case, the artist faces over a dozen charges involving the sexual abuse of six minors. Prosecutors say the abuse of some of those victims was recorded on video, prompting child pornography charges in the case. R.

Kelly confers with his lawyers during his sex abuse trial at Brooklyn’s Federal District Court in a courtroom sketch in New York, U. S. , September 2, 2021.

REUTERS/Jane RosenbergKelly’s former employees, Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, were also charged in the case and accused of conspiring to conceal evidence ahead of Kelly’s 2008 child porn trial in Cook County. McDavid and Brown have pleaded not guilty. Kelly was acquitted then after his lawyers successfully pushed the trial back years and witnesses withdrew from cooperating with prosecutors.

It was at that trial that Jerhonda Pace, then a 16-year-old fan of the singer, met Kelly. She showed up to court to support him. Soon afterward, Kelly invited Pace to his home.

It was the beginning of a sexually abusive relationship that lasted years. At his trial this past fall in Brooklyn, Pace was the first of Kelly’s accusers to testify against him. Read the original article on Insider.