New York:
A US judge on Thursday sentenced disgraced R&B singer R Kelly to 20 years in prison on child pornography and other charges, but he will serve most of it concurrently with a previous sentence.
Kelly, 56, is already serving a 30-year prison sentence after a jury in Brooklyn convicted him of racketeering and sex trafficking in a separate federal trial.
The judge in Kelly’s hometown of Chicago, where he was once seen as a source of pride, ruled that the bulk of the new sentence would be served concurrently with the previous one, with all but one sentence being served at the same time.
That Kelly will spend up to 31 years in prison is a victory for the defense, which insisted in its sentencing memorandum that “a simultaneous sentence is what fairness demands,” and accused the prosecution of participating in a “quest to make sure to ensure that Kelly never sees the light of day.”
His attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, is appealing both of Kelly’s federal convictions.
Born Robert Sylvester Kelly, the artist was convicted in September 2022 of six of the 13 charges alleged at the Chicago trial: three counts of producing child pornography and three counts of seducing a minor.
The singer, known for hits like “I Believe I Can Fly,” was acquitted by a federal jury of seven other charges, including charges of obstructing justice in an earlier trial.
Kelly and two former associates had been charged with rigging the singer’s 2008 child pornography trial, in which a jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
The federal conviction in Chicago came a year after Kelly was convicted in New York of systematically recruiting teens and women for sex.
That verdict was widely seen as a milestone for the #MeToo movement: it was the first major sexual assault trial where the majority of the plaintiffs were black women.
It was also the first time Kelly had faced criminal charges for the abuse he had allegedly inflicted on women and children for decades.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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