CHICAGO (AP) – Singer R. Kelly was rightfully sentenced in Chicago to 20 years in prison for sex crimes against children, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
In 2022, jurors convicted the Grammy-winning R&B singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, of three counts of creating child sexual abuse images and three counts of soliciting sex from a minor.
In his appeal, Kelly argued that Illinois’ previous and shorter statute of limitations for child sex crimes must have applied in his Chicago case, relatively than the present law that permits charges to be filed while an accuser continues to be alive.
He also argued that charges against one accuser must have been handled individually from charges against three other accusers because of the video evidence that became the centerpiece of the Chicago trial.
Federal prosecutors say the video shows Kelly molesting the girl. The accuser, identified only as Jane, testified for the primary time that she was 14 years old when the video was recorded.
A 3-judge panel from the Chicago-based seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Friday’s ruling he noted that jurors acquitted Kelly on seven of the 13 charges against him “even after seeing these disgusting tapes.”
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R. Kelly leaves the Daley Center after a toddler support hearing in May 2019 in Chicago. Kelly’s lawyer told an appeals court Monday that prosecutors improperly used the racketeering statute, written to stamp out organized crime, to pursue the singer. (Photo: Matt Marton/AP, file)
The appeals court also rejected Kelly’s argument that he shouldn’t have been prosecuted since the allegations arose when Illinois law requires prosecution of child sex crime charges inside ten years. The panel described it as Kelly’s attempt to avoid charges altogether after “employing an elaborate scheme to silence victims.”
In a written statement, Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said they plan to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the choice and “pursue all available remedies until R. Kelly is released.”
“We are disappointed with the ruling, but our fight is not over,” she said.
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Prosecutors in Kelly’s hometown of Chicago sought a fair tougher sentence, asking for 25 years in prison. They also wanted the judge not to allow that period to begin until after Kelly had served a 30-year sentence imposed in 2022 in New York for federal racketeering and sex trafficking convictions.
Judge Harry Leinenweber denied that request, ordering Kelly to serve the 20-year sentence in the Chicago case concurrently together with his New York sentence.
Kelly filed a separate appeal against the decision in New York.
Last month, during arguments before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, attorney Jennifer Bonjean asked the panel to find that prosecutors improperly used the racketeering statute, written to stamp out organized crime, to pursue the singer.