Singer R. Kelly is sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and extortion

‘R&B’ star R. Kel­ly was sen­tenced to 30 years in prison on Wednes­day for using his fame to repeat­ed­ly sex­u­al­ly abuse young fol­low­ers, some of whom were just chil­dren. Accord­ing to Vari­ety, Robert Sylvester Kel­ly, a 55-year-old singer, has been found guilty of rack­e­teer­ing and eight counts of vio­lat­ing the Mann Act, which pro­hibits traf­fick­ing peo­ple between states into prostitution.

45 wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied for the gov­ern­ment and he has been detained since July 2019. He still faces alle­ga­tions of child pornog­ra­phy and obstruc­tion of jus­tice in Chica­go, in addi­tion to charges in state courts in Illi­nois and Minnesota.

A six-week tri­al revealed how Kel­ly had used work­ers and go-betweens to lure fans and aspir­ing singers into sex­u­al­ly abu­sive and con­trol­ling con­di­tions, includ­ing being locked in rooms for days with no food or access to a bathroom.

One of the most suc­cess­ful hit­mak­ers of the 1990s and ear­ly 2000s, Kel­ly was found guilty of all nine charges against him in Sep­tem­ber. Giv­en Kel­ly’s con­tin­ued pub­lic threats and appar­ent lack of remorse for alleged­ly using his pop­u­lar­i­ty to sex­u­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly abuse his vic­tims, many of whom were minors, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors were giv­en a “over 25 year” sen­tence. requested.

Although Kel­ly was found guilty of decades of plan­ning to recruit women, under­age girls and men for sex, his attor­ney Jen­nifer Bon­jean, who also rep­re­sent­ed Bill Cos­by in his suc­cess­ful appeal of a sex­u­al assault con­vic­tion last year, plead­ed guilty sen­tenced to a min­i­mum of no more than 10 years in prison and alleges that the singer’s abuse as a child may have con­tributed to his lat­er “hyper­sex­u­al­i­ty”. Angela, the first vic­tim to speak, stood at a lectern and addressed Kel­ly direct­ly, as she had described him as a Pied Piper who seduced the youth with his wealth and notoriety.

“With each new vic­tim your mal­ice grew. You used your fame and pow­er to groom and train under­age boys and girls for your own sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion. We are no longer the exploit­ed indi­vid­u­als we once prayed for God to reach their souls,” she said.

The past four years have been a bru­tal awak­en­ing to how my silence has harmed oth­ers, accord­ing to a sec­ond vic­tim named Addie, who expressed guilt over decades of keep­ing silent about her encounter with Kel­ly in the 1990s.

Nine women and two men gave vivid accounts of Kel­ly’s sex­u­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse at last fal­l’s tri­al, and some of them tes­ti­fied under oath that they were minors when he first had sex with them.

Kel­ly report­ed­ly shows no remorse or even admits his unlaw­ful con­duct, show­ing “a cal­lous dis­re­gard” for the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of his abuse, which was report­ed­ly “fueled by nar­cis­sism and a belief that his musi­cal tal­ent relieved him of the need to con­form to his, accord­ing to the.” Let­ter from the pros­e­cu­tor regard­ing the con­vic­tion, as report­ed by Variety.

Fol­low­ing the pun­ish­ment, Kel­ly is expect­ed to be relo­cat­ed to Chica­go, where he will stand tri­al in August on charges of dis­abil­i­ty and child pornography.