R Kelly Sentenced To 30 Years Imprisonment For Sex Crimes

Disgraced R&B superstar R. Kelly was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison, months after he was convicted on all nine counts against him in a high-profile sex trafficking case.

U.S. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly handed down the sentence in a Brooklyn courtroom after lots of Kelly’s victims angrily addressed the convicted sex offender at the hearing.

Donnelly was blunt as she threw the book at once-beloved performer.

“You were a person who had great advantages — worldwide fame and celebrity and untold money,” she said. “You took advantage of their hopes and dreams, holding teenagers in your house trapped. You were at the top of your organization and you raped and beat them, separated them from their families and forced them to do unspeakable things.”

Victims who addressed the court on Wednesday said they barely had any will to live during their time under Kelly’s control.

“You degraded me, humiliated me and broke my spirit,” said one of the victims, who went by Jane Doe No. 2. “I wished I would die because of how you degraded me.”

The victim recalled an incident when she was forced to perform oral sex on the music star “after you played basketball, in a car full of your friends.”

“Do you remember that?!” she scolded Kelly.

“You couldn’t care less. I avoided your name and your songs and suffocated with fear. What you did left a permanent stain on my life.”

Kelly, 55, was convicted in September of racketeering and violating the Mann Act, the law that bans transporting people across state lines “for any immoral purpose.”

During the trial, which centered on the allegations of six people, prosecutors said Kelly was a serial sexual predator who abused young women, as well as underage girls and boys, for more than two decades.

Prosecutors alleged that he and his entourage led a criminal enterprise that recruited and groomed victims for sex, arranging for them to travel to concerts and events across the U.S.

Kelly was also accused of confining victims in hotel rooms or his recording studio, managing when they could eat and use the bathroom and forcing them to follow various “rules,” including demanding that they call him “Daddy.”

Attorneys for the singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, tried to portray his accusers as “groupies” who intends to exploit his fame and take advantage of the #Metoomovement.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges and did not take the stand in his own defense.

The Grammy Award winning Kelly, best known for the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly,” was considered one of the kings of R&B in the 1990s and 2000s and was widely credited with helping to redefine the genre.

Following his sentencing, Kelly is scheduled to stand trial in August in Chicago on federal child pornography and obstruction of justice charges.

He was acquitted in 2008 of child pornography charges.