R. Kelly Gets New 20-Year Jail Term For Child Porn Crime
A US judge on Thursday handed R&B singer R. Kelly a 20-year prison term for child pornography and other charges, he will however serve most of it simultaneously with an initial sentence.
Kelly, 56, is currently serving a 30-year sentence he got after a Brooklyn jury in a separate federal trial convicted him on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
The judge in Chicago, Kelly’s hometown, ruled that most of the new sentence would be served concurrently with the previous one, with all but one year taken at the same time.
His lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, is appealing both of Kelly’s federal convictions.
The artist, born Robert Sylvester Kelly was convicted in September 2022 on six of 13 counts alleged in the Chicago trial: three counts of producing child pornography and three of enticement of a minor.
The singer was acquitted by a federal jury of the seven other counts, including charges that he obstructed justice in a previous trial.
Kelly and two ex-associates had been accused of rigging the singer’s 2008 child pornography proceedings in which a jury delivered a verdict of not guilty.
