A federal appellate court in Chicago has upheld R. Kelly‘s conviction and 20-year prison sentence for possessing child pornography and child enticement.
The disgraced singer was found guilty of six of 13 counts of owning and producing child pornography and enticing a minor back in September. On Thursday (February 23), he was sentenced to 20 years in prison but he will serve almost all of his sentence simultaneously alongside the jail term he received last year for racketeering and trafficking.
The additional sentence means that in total, Kelly will now serve 31 years in prison and he will not be eligible for release until he is 80 years old.
Kelly appealed the sentence, with his lawyers arguing that U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber exceeded federal sentencing guidelines by six years when he handed him his 20-year sentence.
However, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the sentencing was appropriate due to the “horrid, horrible” nature of Kelly’s crimes. The court also rejected Kelly’s argument that the charges were filed after the statute of limitations had passed.
JUST IN: The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed disgraced R&B star R. Kelly’s federal conviction and sentence in Chicago for sex abuse of minors. pic.twitter.com/kD2dVjQ9rE
— Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b) April 26, 2024
“Kelly—interposing a statute-of-limitations defense—thinks he delayed the charges long enough to elude them entirely. The statute says otherwise, so we affirm his conviction,” a three-judge appeals panel unanimously concluded. “An even-handed jury found Kelly guilty, acquitting him on several charges even after viewing those abhorrent tapes. No statute of limitations saves him, and the resulting sentence was procedurally proper and — especially under these appalling circumstances — substantially fair.”
In response, Kelly’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean told TMZ: “Our fight is not over. We will see review from the [United States Supreme Court] on the statute of limitations questions at a minimum. And he has habeas remedies at his disposal. And if we win in New York, he will be entitled to resentencing in Illinois. So this story is far from over.”
Kelly has also appealed the New York sentence, alleging that the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries influenced the trial and suggested he was guilty before the trial even began.
However, if he did win his appeal, he will still likely end up serving 18 years in prison for his conviction in Chicago.
At the beginning of the year, a final instalment of the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries aired on Lifetime, covering Kelly’s 2022 federal trial. The docuseries also examined the role played by those around Kelly who enabled him, either by turning a blind eye to his abuse over three decades or helping him see his victims, such as by booking flights for underage girls to travel across state lines.
It also examined Kelly’s marriage with the late singer Aaliyah, revealing that he silenced her and her family with a non-disclosure agreement after the annulment of their marriage, which took place when Aaliyah was 15 with her age falsified as 18 on the marriage certificate.
Meanwhile, Tinashe has revealed she feels “embarrassed” about being forced to work with R. Kelly and Chris Brown by her former label, RCA.
“You think I wanted to [do the collaborations?],” she said in a new interview. “I literally block out that R. Kelly song from my mind. I forget that that [song] exists. That’s so embarrassing. That is so unreal that I have a song with R. Kelly.”