R. Kelly, who is both one of the most prolific singer-songwriters of all time and also a serial sexual abuser, has been sentenced by a New York County judge.
At 54, Robert Sylvester Kelly has been given a 30-year bid in prison, which will pretty much will leave him imprisoned for the remainder of his most productive and creative years, and he hasn’t even gotten to his state trial in Chicago yet.
The trial in Illinois is scheduled to begin on Aug. 15, 2022.
Some of the victims spoke through their tears during the sentencing phase of the trial.
“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” one victim said. “Do you remember that?”
The judge lambasted Kelly as he laid the hammer down on Kelly, who has been suspected of abusing girls, including the late superstar singer Aaliyah, since the 1990s.
“Although sex was certainly a weapon that you used, this is not a case about sex. It’s a case about violence, cruelty and control,” U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly told him.
The singer’s attorney tried to argue that Kelly deserved no more than 10 years because his actions were the direct result of a traumatic childhood “involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty and violence.”
Kelly’s lawyers’ also said he deserved leniency because of his “literacy deficiencies,” and the hurtful indignity of being “repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him.”
