R&B Singer, R Kelly Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison

R Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for s3x trafficking.

Newsone reports that the disgraced R&B singer convicted of leading a criminal enterprise geared at helping him prey on boys, girls, and adults for his own s3xual gratification, R. Kelly, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

This online news platform understands that the 55-year-old R Kelly was found guilty last September of all charges against him in Brooklyn federal court. They included racketeering based on sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping, forced labor, and violations of the Mann Act, which barred the transport of people across state lines for s3x.

“These victims were disposable to you,” Judge Anna Donnelly told Kelly before imposing the sentence that also includes a $100,000 fine. “You left in your wake a trail of broken lives … you taught them that love is enslavement and violence and humiliation.”

Newsone Nigeria reports that R. Kelly who was wearing black glasses and a khaki shirt remained emotionless as the sentencing was read.

Several women issued victim impact statements before the sentence was rendered, all detailing the effects of Kelly’s pattern of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. A woman identified as Angela, who testified at trial about how she was s3xually assaulted by the singer when she was a teenager, looked directly at Kelly as she called him a “pied piper” who lured children with fame.

​​“With every addition of a new victim, you grew in wickedness,” Angela said. “You used your fame and power to groom and coach underage boys and girls for your own sexual gratification.”

Lizette Martinez, who was in the Surviving R. Kelly docu-series, kept it simple in her statement to the court on Wednesday: “Robert, you destroyed so many people’s lives.”

Meanwhile, Newsone reports that R Kelly’s sentencing came years after a failed Chicago case against him in 2008, in which the singer was acquitted on all counts after prosecutors argued a video showed him having sex with the teenage niece of R&B singer Sparkle. Fifteen witnesses, including Sparkle, testified during the trial that garnered nationwide attention. Neither the teenager who was allegedly in the video nor her parents testified.

The grueling six-week trial came after two years of delays spurred by a global pandemic and various legal hurdles—and decades of allegations, charges, and lawsuits. During his sentencing hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors focused on the harrowing abuse revealed during the trial while recommending that Kelly be sentenced to more than 25 years in prison to “protect the public from further crimes.”

“He continued his crimes and avoided punishment for them for almost 30 years and must now be held to account,” federal prosecutors said in a 31-page sentencing 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 conform his conduct—no matter how predatory, harmful, humiliating, or abusive to others—to the structures of the law.”

The legal team of the singer argued that R Kelly’s sexual conduct was consensual and that those who spoke out against him were essentially disgruntled exes with an agenda. In a sentencing memo, the team, helmed by Jennifer Bojean, who successfully represented Bill Cosby in his appeal of s3xual-assault charges in Pennsylvania, argued that he should be sentenced to less than 10 years, claiming the singer was a victim of abuse himself.

Nine women and two men took to the stand during the trial to discuss abuse they endured at the hands of Kelly. Almost all of the individuals who testified were under the age of 18 when they first had s3xual contact with him. Among the women who testified was one identified as Jane, who testified about a five-year relationship with Kelly that began when she was 17.

In what was probably the most horrifying episode of the trial, she broke down on the stand as she described Kelly making her smear feces on her mouth and eat it on video as punishment for disobeying one of his rules. (Another time, she said, Kelly made her have an abortion to keep “her body tight.”)

“He told me to smear it in my face and what to exactly say, and to, like, put it in my mouth and act like I liked, enjoyed that,” she told jurors.

Kelly was also found guilty of bribing an Illinois official in order to obtain a fake ID for Aaliyah, the “Princess of R&B,” who was just 15 years old at the time of their Aug. 31, 1994, wedding.

New details about the bizarre marriage emerged during the trial, including that the wedding came after Aaliyah believed she was pregnant. ​​Prosecutors alleged that Kelly wanted to marry Aaliyah largely or solely to make sure “she would get an abortion.”

At the time, Aaliyah was 15, and R. Kelly was 27.