R&B star R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his superstardom to subject young fans — some just children — to systematic sexual abuse.
The singer and songwriter, 55, was convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking last year at a trial that gave voice to accusers who had once wondered if their stories were being ignored because they were Black women.
US District Judge Ann Donnelly imposed the sentence after hearing from several survivors who attested to how Kelly's exploitation reverberated across their lives.
Through tears and anger, R. Kelly's accusers told the court on Wednesday he had preyed on them and misled his fans as the fallen R&B star listened with downcast eyes.
"You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel," one woman told the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling singer.
"Do you remember that?"
A Brooklyn federal court jury last fall found Kelly, 55, guilty of racketeering and other counts at a trial that was seen as a signature moment in the #MeToo movement.
Outrage over Kelly's sexual misconduct with young women and children was fuelled in part by the widely watched docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, which gave voice to accusers who wondered if their stories were previously ignored because they were Black women.
Kelly manipulated millions of fans into believing he was someone other than the man the jury saw, another accuser said.
Victims "have sought to be heard and acknowledged," she said. "We are no longer the preyed-on individuals we once were."
A third woman, sobbing and sniffling as she spoke, said Kelly's conviction restored her faith in the legal system.
"I once lost hope," she said, addressing the court and prosecutors, "but you restored my faith."
The woman said Kelly victimised her after she went to a concert when she was 17.
"I was afraid, naive and didn't know to handle the situation," she said, so she didn't speak up at the time.
"Silence," she said, "is a very lonely place."
Kelly kept his hands folded and looked down as he listened.
He did not address the court.
Defence argued for 10 years or less
Prosecutors had sought a minimum 25-year term, while the defence said a sentence of 10 years or less was all he deserves.
Kelly's lawyers argued in court papers he should get a break in part because he "experienced a traumatic childhood involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence".
They added: "His victimisation continued into adulthood where, because of his literacy deficiencies, the defendant has been repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him."
The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling hitmaker is known for work including the 1996 hit I Believe I Can Fly and the cult classic Trapped in the Closet, a multi-part tale of sexual betrayal and intrigue.
Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008, and he settled the lawsuit.
All the while, Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.
The Brooklyn federal court jury convicted him after hearing about how he used his entourage of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation prosecutors said amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.
'Used fame, money, popularity to prey'
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, used his "fame, money and popularity" to systematically "prey upon children and young women for his own sexual gratification", prosecutors wrote in their own filing earlier this month.
The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as "Rob's rules".
Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.
According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD, coerced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a shaming video of one victim showing her smearing faeces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.
Kelly has denied any wrongdoing. He didn't testify at his trial, but his then-lawyers portrayed his accusers as girlfriends and groupies who weren't forced to do anything against their will and stayed with him because they enjoyed the perks of his lifestyle.
Evidence also was presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.
Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number. She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.
An earlier defence memo suggested prosecutors' arguments for a higher sentence overreached by falsely claiming Kelly participated in the paying of a bribe to a government official in order to facilitate the illegal marriage.
Kelly's lawyers also said it was wrong to assert he should get more time because he sexually abused one of his victims — referred to in court as "Jane" — after her parents innocently entrusted him to help her with her musical career.
"The record shows that Jane's parents directed Jane to lie to the defendant about her age and then encouraged her to seduce him," the papers say.
Kelly has been jailed without bail since in 2019. He's still facing child pornography and obstruction of justice charges in Chicago, where a trial is scheduled to begin August 15.
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