R Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his R&B superstar to subject young fans to systematic sexual abuse.
he singer and songwriter was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in a trial last year that gave voice to accusers who once wondered if their stories were being ignored because they were black women.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly handed down the sentence at a courthouse in Brooklyn. The sentence limits a slow action for Kelly, who is 55. He remained popular with legions of fans, even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began to circulate in public in the 1990s.
Through tears and anger, R Kelly’s prosecutors told a court on Wednesday he pecked at them and misled his fans, while the fallen R&B star was awaiting sentencing over his federal conviction for sex trafficking.
“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” one woman told the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum sales singer. She said she was forever traumatized by her teenage experience with him.
“Do you remember that?” she asked.
A Brooklyn federal court jury found Kelly, 55, guilty of racketeering and other charges last fall during a trial that was considered a landmark moment in the #MeToo movement.
Anger over Kelly’s sexual misconduct with young women and children was fueled in part by the widely watched documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly,” which gave voice to accusers who wondered if their stories had previously been ignored because they were Black women.
Kelly has manipulated millions of fans into believing he is someone other than the man the jury saw, another prosecutor told the court.
Victims “sought to be heard and recognized,” she said. “We are no longer the tampered individuals we once were.”
A third woman, sobbing and sniffing as she spoke, said Kelly’s conviction renewed her confidence in the justice system.
“I once lost hope,” she said as she addressed the court and prosecutors, “but you have restored my faith.”
The woman said Kelly victimized her after she went to a concert when she was 17.
“I was scared, naive and did not know how to handle the situation,” she said, so she did not speak.
“Silence,” she said, “is a very lonely place.”
Kelly keeps his hands folded and eyes down as he listens. It was not yet clear if he would speak at sentencing.
“He is strong, and we are going to get through this,” said attorney Jennifer Bonjean on her way to court. Whatever his sentence, Kelly hopes his conviction on appeal will be overturned, she said.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly has ruled that federal guidelines allow a sentence of up to life in prison. Kelly’s attorneys searched for 10 years or less.
They argued in court documents he should get a break partly because he “experienced a traumatic childhood that involved serious, prolonged sexual abuse, poverty and violence in childhood.”
As an adult with “literacy deficiencies”, the star was “repeatedly deceived and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him,” his lawyers said.
The hitmaker is known for his work, including the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and the cult classic “Trapped in the Closet”, a multiple story of sexual betrayal and intrigue.
Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began to circulate in public in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who claimed to have been sexually harassed and sexually harassed while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to another girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008 and he settled the lawsuit.
All the while, Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.
The Brooklyn federal court jury found him guilty after hearing he used his entourage of managers and assistants to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation that prosecutors say amounts to a criminal enterprise.
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, used his “fame, money and popularity” to systematically “prey on children and young women for his own sexual gratification,” prosecutors wrote in a court ruling earlier this month.
Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverted and sadistic whims when they were minors.
The accusers alleged that they were ordered to sign non-disclosure forms and were subject to threats and penalties such as violent beatings if they violated what one referred to as “Rob’s rules.”
Some said they believe the videotapes he shot of those having sex will be used against them if they uncover what happened.
According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without revealing that he had an SOS, forced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who appeared under a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a disgraceful video showing one victim smearing feces on her face as punishment for violating his rules.
Kelly denied any wrongdoing. He did not testify during his trial, but his lawyers at the time portrayed his accusers as friends and groups who were not forced to do anything against their will and stayed with him because they enjoyed the benefits of his lifestyle.
Evidence has also been provided about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he fertilized the R&B phenomenon Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15 years old. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits with a license that falsely mentioned her age as 18; he was then 27.
Aaliyah collaborated with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number”. She died in 2001 at the age of 22 in a plane crash.
An earlier defense memorandum outlined prosecutors’ arguments for a higher sentence being overturned by falsely claiming Kelly had participated in the payment of bribes to a government official to facilitate the illegal marriage.
The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted or abused unless they appear in public. The women who spoke during Kelly’s sentencing were identified only by first names or pseudonyms.
Kelly has been jailed since 2019 without bail. He is still facing charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice in Chicago, where a trial is scheduled to begin on August 15.