NEW YORK — Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday for spearheading decades-long efforts to recruit and entrap teenage boys and women for sex.
The sentence, more severe than the 25 years in prison required by prosecutors, caps a long fall for the 55-year-old former superstar.
“I am grateful that Robert Sylvester Kelly is gone and that he is staying away and not hurting anyone else,” victim Lizzette Martinez told reporters outside Brooklyn federal court.
In September, the I Believe I Can Fly artist was found guilty of all nine counts he faced, including the most serious racketeering.
“The public must be protected from such behavior,” Judge Ann Donnelly said in imposing the sentence.
Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, hailed the decision as an “important finding” for the 11 victims, who testified to the “horrific and sadistic abuse they suffered”.
Kelly’s lawyers have asked for a lighter sentence of up to around 17 years.
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Lawyer Jennifer Bonjean told the judge her client was the product of a “messy” upbringing that included childhood sexual abuse.
“Mr. Kelly denies being that freak,” Bonjean said, later telling reporters in court that she would appeal.
Three-time Grammy winner Kelly chose not to speak at the hearing due to ongoing litigation.
The verdict comes just over a month before jury selection begins Aug. 15 in Kelly’s separate and long-delayed federal trial in Chicago.
In the case, Kelly and two of his former associates allegedly rigged the singer’s pornography trial in 2008 and covered up years of child sexual abuse.
The musician who once dominated R&B also faces criminal charges in two other state jurisdictions.
#METOO MOVEMENT VICTORY
Kelly’s conviction in New York was widely seen as a milestone for the #MeToo movement: It was the first major sex abuse trial in which the majority of accusers were black women.
It was also the first time Kelly had faced criminal penalties for abuse he allegedly inflicted on women and children for decades.
Prosecutors have been tasked with convicting Kelly of racketeering, a federal charge commonly associated with organized crime syndicates, which portrays Kelly as the boss of a corporation of associates who facilitated his abuse.
They called 45 witnesses, including 11 victims, to the stand and meticulously laid out a pattern of crimes they say born artist Robert Sylvester Kelly committed with impunity for years, using his fame to prey on the less powerful.
To convict Kelly of racketeering, the jury had to find him guilty of at least two of 14 “predicate offences” – the core crimes in the larger pattern of unlawful misconduct.
Blatant testimonies intended to prove these acts included rape, drug use, imprisonment and child pornography.
His accusers described events that are often mirrored: Many alleged victims said they met the singer at concerts or mall appearances and were later given notes with Kelly’s contact information by members of his inner circle.
Several said they were told it could boost their ambitions in the music industry.
But prosecutors argued everyone was instead ‘indoctrinated’ into Kelly’s world – primed for sex on the whim and kept in line by ‘forced control devices’, including solitary confinement and cruel disciplinary action. , whose recordings were shown to the jury.
At the heart of the state case was Kelly’s relationship with late singer Aaliyah.
Kelly wrote and produced her debut album, Age Ain’t Not But A Number, before illegally marrying him when she was just 15, fearing he would get her pregnant.
Its former manager admitted in court to having bribed a worker to obtain a false identity card authorizing the union, which was later canceled.
- AFP
