R Kelly found guilty of child pornography charges: How long will he be in jail for?
The R&B singer has been convicted on multiple counts of child abuse and child enticement by a federal court in his home town of Chicago.
Disgraced R&B star R Kelly has been convicted on several child and sexual abuses charges. The singer was convicted by a federal jury in his home town of Chicago and found guilty on three counts of child abuse images and three counts of child enticement.
The 55-year-old was acquitted on a number of other charges, including a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge related to his child abuse trial in 2008. R Kelly’s two co-defendants were found not guilty on all charges.
As has been the case in the singer’s previous courtroom appearances, the prosecution were keen to emphasise the role that R Kelly’s power and fame played in the abuse, allowing him to manipulate young fans and aspiring artists.
The judge has not yet issued a sentence in regards to this new conviction.
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What has R Kelly been found guilty of?
The Chicago court case brought 13 counts against R Kelly, mostly relating to sexual abuse and exploitation and accusations of conspiring to cover up evidence at a previous trial. He was acquitted on the conspiracy charges but guilty on three of four charges of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Several victims testified against him during the five-week trial. They were all underage at the time of the abuse, some of which was recorded on video.
The case centred around a star witness who claimed to be the person in a video sent anonymously to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002, that allegedly showed R Kelly engaging in sexual activity with an underage girl.
The witness, referred to as ‘Jane’ during the trial, testified that she had been 15 when the singer initiated a sexual relationship with her and that he had forced her to isolate herself from her family and friends. This pattern of sexual abuse and manipulation was consistent across some of his other victims.
How long is R Kelly in jail for?
Legal troubles had been mounting for the disgraced star for over two decades but it was the Lifetime documentary series ‘Surviving R Kelly’ released in 2019 that brought a breakthrough for prosecutors. One of the victims involved in the documentary agreed to cooperate with investigators and confirmed that she had lied on R Kelly’s behalf in a previous trial.
The investigation reached a culmination in June of this year when a court sentenced R Kelly to 30 years in prison for racketeering and sex trafficking. The presiding District Judge Ann M. Donnelly said that there were “few crimes more serious” than those perpetrated by the singer over the course of decades of abuse.
The judge in the Chicago case has not yet passed sentence on his latest convictions, but a single count of child abuse images carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. The judge can rule to allow the defendant to serve separate sentences simultaneously.
There will likely be some extension to the 30-year sentence handed down in 2019 and given that federal inmates must serve at least 85% of their sentence, it is unlikely that the 55-year-old will have any hope of release for decades to come.