R. Kelly Just Got More Bad News
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Last February, we told you about how disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his sex crimes as the conclusion for his Chicago trial back in 2022.
A jury convicted the “Ignition” singer on six of the 13 charges “in connection with sexual abuse during the 1990s, including three counts of coercing minors into sexual activity and three of producing sex tapes involving a minor.” As a result, he was ordered to serve 20 years in congruence with his previous 30 year sentence stemming from his racketeering trial in New York.
As one could only expect, Kelly’s legal team filed an appeal. But on Friday, a judge shut down his attempts once and for all and affirmed the decision for him to remain behind bars.
JUST IN: The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed disgraced R&B star R. Kelly’s federal conviction and sentence in Chicago for sex abuse of minors. pic.twitter.com/kD2dVjQ9rE
— Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b) April 26, 2024
“For years, Robert Sylvester Kelly abused underage girls. By employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet, he long evaded consequences. In recent years, though, those crimes caught up with him at last. But Kelly—interposing a statute-of-limitations defense—thinks he delayed the charges long enough to elude them entirely. The statute says otherwise, so we affirm his conviction,” Judge Amy St. Eve wrote in a unanimous ruling according to CBS News.
“An even-handed jury found Kelly guilty, acquitting him on several charges even after viewing those abhorrent tapes. No statute of limitations saves him, and the resulting sentence was procedurally proper and—especially under these appalling circumstances—substantively fair,” she said.
While this is a definite win for the survivors in this Chicago trial, as previously reported by The Root, Kelly filed an appeal in March to get his conviction for the New York trial overturned or a new trial all together. The appeal was argued by his lawyer Jennifer Bonjean to three judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Monday where she alleged that the charge of racketeering lobbed against her client essentially wasn’t sufficient enough for a conviction due to what she argues should constitute a RICO enterprise.
To date, the judges have not yet made a ruling on whether to deny or grant the appeal.
