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R. Kelly back in court in fight over child support payments

Source: Chicago Tribune / Getty

UPDATE

R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in Brooklyn federal court on June 29. U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly sentenced Kelly nine months after a jury found him guilty of nine counts of charges including racketeering, bribery, sexual exploitation of a child and violating the Mann Act.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said that he hopes the disgraced singer’s sentencing shows “that it does not matter how powerful, rich or famous your abuser may be, or how small they make you feel – justice only hears the truth.”

“With the aid of his fame, money, and most importantly his inner circle, R. Kelly preyed upon children and young women for his own sexual gratification, for decades,” Peace said. “He used coercive control – exemplified by a pattern of isolation, rules, dependence, threats, intimidation tactics, physical abuse, and, at least once, the presence of a firearm – to force victims, including minors, to engage in sexual activity with him and others and to become unwilling participants in the pornographic films he wrote, produced, and directed.”

This sentencing is a “momentous outcome” for all of the survivors of Kelly’s abuse, Peace added.

“Today, the sentence shows the witnesses reclaimed control over their lives, and over their future. These are the voices of mostly young Black women and children that were heard and believed and for whom justice was achieved. This is a victory for them, for justice, and for future survivors of sexual assault. Victims of sexual violence must be heard, perpetrators must be held accountable and our women and children must be protected.”

Kelly also has to got to trial in Minnesota for charges of engaging in prostitution with an individual under the age of 18 but at least 16 years old and hiring, offering, or agreeing to hire someone in that age range for sexual penetration or sexual contact, NPR reported. In Illinois, he will go to trial over charges including including child pornography, enticement of a minor and obstruction of justice, AP News stated.

ORIGINAL STORY

R. Kelly will be sentenced in a Brooklyn federal court on June 29. Prosecutors have recommended that Kelly get 25 years or more in prison for sexually abusing teenagers for almost three decades.

According to the New York Post, prosecutors from the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York  explained why Kelly should be behind bars for more than 25 years in a 31-page memo.

“Indeed, the defendant’s decades of crime appear to have been fueled by narcissism and a belief that his musical talent absolved him of any need to confirm his conduct — no matter how predatory, harmful, humiliating or abusive to other — to the structures of the law,” the memo read.

R. Kelly was found guilty of racketeering, acts of bribery, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, eight counts of violating the Mann Act and sex trafficking charges. He was accused of being the head of a criminal enterprise whose goal was to lure in teenage girls and boys for sexual abuse and exploitation.

During his trial in September 2021, 45 witnesses testified against the convicted predator. Witnesses who testified included women who said he promised to help them launch their music career but instead physically and sexually abused them. A former member of the “Step In The Name of Love” singer’s entourage admitted to bribing a government official to obtain a fake ID for a then 15-year-old Aaliyah so she could marry 27-year-old Kelly in 1994. Someone else testified and claimed they saw him perform sexual acts on Aaliyah when she was 13 or 14-years-old.

“Put simply, the defendant’s crimes were calculated, methodical, and part a long- standing pattern of using his platform as a larger-than-life musical persona and his deep network to gain access to teenagers, many of whom were particularly vulnerable, and then to exploit them for his personal gain and sexual gratification,” prosecutors wrote in the memo.

R. Kelly’s hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m.

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