To hardly anyone’s surprise, disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly faces decades in prison after being found guilty in his state trial in Chicago.
Robert Sylvester Kelly, 55, was convicted on six of the 13 counts he was indicted on related to sexual assault of minor females. According to WGN-TV, Kelly was acquitted on seven counts that included: one child pornography count, one count of sexual exploitation of a child, one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, as well as four conspiracy counts.
“It had to be the way R. Kelly wanted,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeannice Appenteng said Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. “And, ladies and gentlemen, what R. Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls.”
Kelly has already been sentenced to 30 years in prison in June 2022 after being convicted in his federal trial in New York on a litany of similar charges.
“R. Kelly used his fame, fortune and enablers to prey on the young, the vulnerable and the voiceless for his own sexual gratification, while many turned a blind eye,” Breon Pace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “Through his actions, Kelly exhibited a callous disregard for the devastation his crimes had on his victims and has shown no remorse for his conduct.”
Kelly notified the media through his attorneys that he plans to appeal his conviction and sentence from the federal trial in New York. Legal pundits expect Kelly to do the same after this state trial in Chicago.
