Calay News
A federal court in Chicago has sentenced singer R. Kelly to 20 years in prison for child molestation. However, he will serve most of this sentence concurrently with the 30-year prison term he received in June for other crimes in a New York court. The federal judge explained that Kelly will serve 19 of the 20 years at the same time as the previous sentence, and the remaining year will be served the year after he has served the 30 years in prison. In total, Kelly will spend 31 years in prison for three counts of child molestation and three counts of child pornography.
The Chicago trial focused on the allegations of five minors who were abused by Kelly in the late 1990s, including four of them who were filmed in explicit videos. One of the witnesses during the trial testified that Kelly forced her into “hundreds of sexual acts” from the age of 15 to 18. Prosecutors described him as “a serial sexual predator” who targeted “specifically young girls” and did “everything possible” to conceal the abuse.
Kelly was also sentenced in New York for racketeering, abuse, and sex trafficking and is currently being held in a New York City jail. During the trial in New York, prosecutors argued that he used his “celebrity status” to create a “network of girls and women at his disposal.” Kelly, who is one of the most renowned R&B artists of the 1990s and 2000s with three Grammys to his credit, refuses to accept responsibility for any of the crimes for which he has been convicted. The artist’s defense argued that he was already serving a “de facto life sentence” and that there was “no reason” to think he would reoffend as “a gentleman over 80 years old.”
