R. Kelly convicted of child porn, enticing girls for sex

A federal jury in Chicago convicted R. Kelly on Wednesday of producing child pornography and enticing girls for sex after a monthlong trial in his hometown, delivering another legal blow to the Grammy Award winning singer who was once one of the world’s biggest R&B stars.

Prosecutors won convictions on six of the 13 counts against him, with many of the convictions carrying long mandatory sentences. But the government lost the marquee count — that Kelly and his then-business manager successfully rigged his state child pornography trial in 2008.

Both of his co-defendants, including longtime business manager Derrel McDavid — who had told jurors that testimony from four Kelly accusers had led him to change his mind about Kelly’s believability — were acquitted of all charges.

The trial was, in ways, a do-over of Kelly’s 2008 child pornography trial, with a key video critical to both. Kelly, who shed tears of joy when jurors acquitted him in 2008, gave a thumbs-up sign to spectators after Wednesday’s verdict but otherwise showed little emotion.

Before Kelly was returned to federal lockup, McDavid hugged Kelly, who rose from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a superstar.

Asked by reporters later outside court how Kelly felt after the verdict, his lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said: “Mr. Kelly is used to bad news.”

“He’s still got many fights to fight,” she said. “But what he did say is that he had a sense of relief that this particular case was in the past now.”

The verdict comes months after a federal judge in New York sentenced Kelly to 30 years in prison in June for racketeering and sex trafficking. Based on that sentence, the 55-year-old won’t be eligible for release until he is around 80.

And two sexual misconduct trials still await Kelly — one in Minnesota and one in state court in Chicago.

After deliberating for 11 hours over two days, jurors convicted Kelly of three counts each of producing child pornography and enticement, while acquitting him of obstruction of justice, one count of production of child porn and three counts of receiving child porn.

Among the charges McDavid was acquitted of was conspiring with Kelly to rig the 2008 trial. Milton Brown, the other co-defendant, was acquitted of receiving child pornography.

Chicago-based U.S. Attorney John Lausch expressed satisfaction with the verdict. He told reporters that, when you add up the potential punishments on the six guilty counts, Kelly was staring at at least 10 years and up to 90 in prison.

Judge Harry Leinenweber did not set a sentencing date. He could order that Kelly serve whatever sentence he imposes simultaneously with the New York sentence or only after that one is fully served. The latter would, for practical purposes, mean a life sentence.

Prosecutors at the federal trial in Illinois portrayed Kelly as a master manipulator who used his fame and wealth to reel in star-struck fans, some of them minors, to sexually abuse then discard them.

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, was desperate to recover pornographic videos he made and lugged around in a gym bag, witnesses said. They said he offered up to $1 million to recover missing videos before his 2008 trial, knowing they would land him in legal peril. The conspiracy to hide his abuse ran from 2000 to 2020, prosecutors said.

Some dozen Kelly fans regularly attended the trial. On at least one occasion during a break, several made hand signs of a heart at Kelly. He smiled back.

Bonjean, Kelly’s attorney, told jurors in her closings that the government had relied, in some cases, on liars and and blackmailers as witnesses. She earlier implored jurors not to see Kelly as “the monster” she said prosecutors so badly wanted them to see.

In her closing rebuttal Tuesday, prosecutor Jeannice Appenteng cited testimony that Kelly’s inner circle increasingly focused on doing what Kelly wanted as his fame boomed in the mid-1990s.

“And ladies and gentlemen, what R. Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls,” she said.

All four Kelly accusers who testified went by pseudonyms or their first names: Jane, Nia, Pauline and Tracy. Some cried when describing the abuse but otherwise spoke calmly and with confidence. A fifth accuser, Brittany, didn’t testify, and jurors acquitted Kelly of the one charge related to her.

Four of his six convictions were tied directly to Jane and relied largely on her testimony.

She was the government’s star witness and also pivotal to the trial fixing charge, of which he was acquitted, and which accused him of using threats and payoffs to get her to lie to a grand jury before his 2008 trial.

A single video, which state prosecutors said was Kelly abusing a girl of around 14, was the focal point of that trial. Three of the child porn charges that Kelly was convicted of Wednesday were related to that video and others depicting Jane.

Jane, 37, said publicly for the first time at the just-ended trial that the girl in the video was her at age 14 and that the man was Kelly, who would have been around 30.

Some jurors in the 2008 trial said they had to acquit Kelly because the girl in the video didn’t testify.

Asked on the witness stand how many times Jane and Kelly had sexually abused her before she turned 18, Jane answered quietly: “Uncountable times. … Hundreds.”

Jane, who belonged to a teenage singing group, first met Kelly in the late 1990s when she was in junior high school. Soon after that, Jane told her parents Kelly was going to be her godfather.

Jane testified that when her parents confronted Kelly in the early 2000s he dropped to his knees and begged them for forgiveness. She said she implored her parents not to take action against Kelly because she loved him.

Defense attorneys suggested a desire for money and fame drove some government witnesses to accuse Kelly, and they accused several people of trying to blackmail him.

Prosecutors played jurors excerpts from three videos that Jane said featured her. Court officials set up opaque screens around the jurors so spectators couldn’t see the videos or the jurors’ reactions.

But the sound was audible. In one video, the girl is heard repeatedly calling the man “daddy.” At one point she asks: “Daddy, do you still love me?” The man gives her sexually explicit instructions.

Prosecutors have said Kelly recorded the video that was also evidence in the 2008 trial in a log cabin-themed room at his North Side Chicago home around 1998.

Another accuser, Pauline, said Jane introduced her to Kelly when they were 14-year-old middle school classmates in 1998. She told jurors she still cares for Kelly. But, as a 37-year-old mom, she said she now has a different perspective.

“If somebody did something to my kids,” she said, “I’m killing ’em. Period.”

SOURCE

AGAIN?

Even as this guy is in prison they keep finding more and more evidence against him. This man is just a mugu. Next time in his next life when he sees an under aged girl he will run...

When I watched one of his nonsense sex videos some years ago, he was doing his thing with the girl and he asked her how old are you she said 16 ... He repeated it again in ecstasy, how old are you dammit, she said 16 while moanimg and enjoying his thrusts.... This seemed to turn him on..

In my mind while watching i was thinking to myself that this man just use his hand to record evidence against himself o. little did I know I was seeing the future

This man is the definition of the word mugu

Man go just carry hand spoil e life
All bcus of under skirt

I thought he has already been sentenced earlier.

When he sang 'Storm is over' the devil was just giving him waka He didn't know he was making a joke of himself that the endless storm in his life that will never be over was about to start.

This one is a goner, he should have been jailed long ago

Chai this guy sha

The want to finish this guy kpata kpata, even when he's still in prison.

If he's guilty of all he's been accused, may he live a miserable life, may his pains be excruciating to serve as a deterrent to others who find pleasure in underaged girls.
See how sexual immorality reduced almighty R Kelly to a mere piece of bread.

Reason why the bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:18

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body

It also says Proverbs 6:26

For by means of a harlot A man is reduced to a crust of bread; And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.

but in this case, the underaged girls are not prostitutes.

R Kelly and this kind of case is like Garri and groundnut. He has never won. Anyway prison to them is like vacation, he will be out in few years.

If it was Nigeria, his celebrity status, money and connections would have saved him and will still be on the loose defiling minors. May God have mercy on him sha. E no easy

David9494:

Make I just talk wetyn Dey my mind

Wetin dem talk say problem be like again

Make una kuku kee this guy na

The end

Prison is not a remedy for this guy's problem. Can't they see that he is very sick mentally. I think an asylum is the best place to confine him. Very very sick

Many do these evil things. God will expose them all

Hb

Say No To Child Promography!

Even though superstars get more than enough girls they will still rape or use underage. What's the spirit behind this sef

This guy atrocities were many

One of the best RnB king of our time....... Its painful he fell

Will sing longer in Jail

R. Kelly and wahala.

Truly, if you read what R. Kelly did to those teenagers, you'll have no pity for him.

Sad. The Storm is not over for him.

Do the crime, do the time

Found guilty,...

Should be prosecuted as such...

Everyman should answer for his crime...

I gat no sympathy for any motherfucker.

I pray this 1 doesn't die in prison.
.
Prison is now his middle name.

hope it's not conspiracy

To this end...

Money is not everything

Money fail
Fame fail

But G͜͡O͜͡O͜͡D͜͡ C͜͡O͜͡N͜͡D͜͡U͜͡C͜͡T͜͡
Will rise you up

K

Na wa sha. Dude got a second chance in 2008,but he could not tame his demons.