The American singer R. Kelly was sentenced this Wednesday to 19 years in prison, nine months after being found guilty of directing a scheme for the sexual abuse of women and children.
In September of last year, a New York jury convicted the musician of 50 years for a charge of organized crime and eight more for sex trafficking.
The R&B star, born in Chicago as Robert Sylvester Kelly, has already spent close to three years behind bars.
During the trial he was confronted by the victims who accused him of sexual abuse over decades. He also faces criminal charges in three other unresolved cases.
The singer, known for the successful songs I Believe I Can Fly and Ignition ( Remix)
Jurors over six weeks in Brooklyn heard how he trafficked women between different US states, with the help of managers, security guards and other members of his entourage, for two decades.
The court also received evidence of how Kelly had obtained illegally had documents to marry singer Aaliyah when she was 15 years in 1994, seven years before the singer died in a plane crash.
R. Kelly, known for the hit songs I Believe I Can Fly and Ignition (Remix). (Photo: Antonio Perez – Pool via Getty Images)The birth certificate stated that Aaliyah’s age was 18 years. The marriage was annulled months later.
Prosecutors said the musician showed “callous contempt” for his victims and no remorse.
“In fact, the Defendant’s decades of delinquency appear to have been fueled by narcissism and the belief that his musical talents absolved him of any need to conform his behavior – no matter how predatory, harmful, humiliating or abusive towards others – to the restrictions of the law”, they said.
But his legal team argued that he was now “no longer a risk to the public” and deserved no more than the minimum sentence of a decade in prison.
In recently unsealed court documents, Kelly was portrayed as a “musical genius” who grew up poor in a home plagued by domestic violence, who suffered sexual abuse from an early age and thus became “hypersexual ”.
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean at He added that his client is not a “one-dimensional sexual predator monster” or a pedophile.
It is known that the time he has spent behind bars has been difficult, as he suffered a beating by a colleague from prison in 2020 and became ill with covid-19 at the beginning of this year.
The singer’s legal problems will continue in August, when he will be tried again in a federal court, this time in Chicago, for image trafficking sexual abuse of children and charges of obstruction of justice.
He must also face charges of sexual abuse in state courts in Illinois and Minnesota.
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