R&B star R. Kelly was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for using his superstar to subject young fans, some who were just children, to systematic sexual abuse.
The 55-year-old singer and songwriter was convicted of extortion and sex trafficking last year in a trial that gave voice to accusers who had once wondered if their stories were being ignored because they were black women.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly imposed the sentence after hearing several survivors testify to how Kelly’s exploitation affected their lives.
“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wanted to die because of the bass you made me feel,” said an unnamed survivor, addressing Kelly directly, who kept her hands folded and eyes downcast. “Do you remember that?”
Kelly, 55, did not speak at his sentencing, where he was also sentenced to pay a $ 100,000 fine. She was convicted last year of extortion and sex trafficking in a trial that gave voice to accusers who had previously wondered if her stories were being ignored because they were black women.
“While sex was certainly a weapon you used, this is not a case of sex. It is a case of violence, cruelty and control,” the judge told Kelly.
The sentence ends with a slow-motion drop for Kelly, who was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums even after allegations of her abuse of girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct did not come to the calculation of MeToo, which reached a crescendo after the premiere of the docuserie Surviving R. Kelly.
Kelly manipulated millions of fans into believing he was someone other than the man the jury saw, another accuser said.
The victims “have sought to be heard and recognized,” he said. “We are no longer the predated individuals we were before.”
A third woman who cried while speaking said Kelly’s conviction restored her faith in the legal system.
“I once lost hope,” he said, addressing the court and prosecutors, “but you restored my faith.”
The woman said Kelly victimized her after going to a concert when she was 17 years old. He said he did not comment at the time because he was “scared, naive and didn’t know how to handle the situation.”
“The silence,” he said, “is a very lonely place.”
The lawyers wanted an indulgent sentence due to a traumatic childhood
Kelly’s lawyers had argued in court documents that she should not spend more than 10 years in prison because she “lived a traumatic childhood that involved severe and prolonged sexual abuse, poverty and violence during childhood.”
As an adult with “literacy deficiencies,” the star was “repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by people who paid to protect him,” his lawyers said.
The Grammy-winning singer, who has sold multiplatinum, is known for songs such as the 1996 hit I Believe I Can Fly and the cult hit Trapped in the Closet.
Allegations that Kelly was abusing young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.
He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual assault and sexual harassment while a minor, and later faced criminal charges of child pornography related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008 and resolved the lawsuit.
All the while, Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.
The Brooklyn federal court jury convicted him after learning how he used his environment of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, according to prosecutors of an operation equivalent to a criminal enterprise.
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, used his “fame, money and popularity” to “systematically take advantage of children and young women for their own sexual gratification,” prosecutors wrote in a court document in early ‘this month.
Several prosecutors testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were minors.
Prosecutors alleged that they were ordered to sign confidentiality forms and that they were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent beatings if they violated what was called “Rob’s rules.”
Some said they believed video recordings of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.
According to the witness, Kelly gave herpes to several accusers without revealing that she had an STD, coerced a teenager into joining him for sex with a naked girl who came out from under a boxing ring in his garage and he recorded an embarrassing video of a victim showing it. anointing his face as punishment for breaking his rules.
Kelly planned to fraudulently marry Aaliyah, witnesses testified
Evidence was also presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme devised to protect Kelly after she feared she had impregnated R&B singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15 years old. Witnesses said they married matching jogging suits with a license that falsely listed their age of 18; he was 27 at the time.
Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number. He died in a plane crash in 2001 at the age of 22.
An earlier defense note suggested that prosecutors’ arguments for a higher sentence had been overturned by falsely claiming that Kelly was involved in paying a bribe to a government official in order to facilitate illegal marriage. .
Kelly’s lawyers also said it was wrong to say she should have more time because she sexually abused one of her victims, known in court as “Jane,” after her parents trusted her to help her with his musical career.
“The record shows that Jane’s parents told Jane to lie to the accused about her age and then encouraged her to seduce him,” the newspapers said.
The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted or abused unless they demonstrate publicly.
Kelly has been jailed without bail since 2019. He still faces charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice in Chicago, where a trial is scheduled to begin on August 15.