Singer R. Kelly gets 30 years in jail over sex crimes
Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years behind bars on Wednesday for leading a decades-long effort to recruit and trap teenagers and women for sex.
The sentence, stiffer than the 25 years in prison that prosecutors had sought, caps a long downfall for the 55-year-old former superstar.
“I’m grateful that Robert Sylvester Kelly is away and will stay away and will not be able to harm anyone else,” victim Lizzette Martinez told reporters outside the Brooklyn federal court.
In September, the I Believe I Can Fly artist was found guilty on all nine charges he faced, including the most serious of racketeering.
“The public has to be protected from behaviours like this,” judge Ann Donnelly said, handing down the term.
Breon Peace, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York hailed the sentence as a “significant outcome” for the 11 victims who testified about the “horrific and sadistic abuse they endured”.
Kelly’s lawyers called for a lighter sentence with a maximum of approximately 17 years.
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean told the judge that her client was the product of a “chaotic” upbringing that included being sexually abused as a child.
“Mr Kelly rejects that he’s this monster,” Bonjean said, later telling reporters outside court that she would appeal.
Kelly, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, chose not to speak at the hearing due to pending litigation.
The sentence comes just over a month before jury selection is due to start in Kelly’s separate, long-delayed federal trial in Chicago on Aug 15.
In that case, Kelly and two of his former associates are alleged to have rigged the singer’s 2008 pornography trial and hid years of sexual abuse of minors.
The musician who once dominated R&B also faces prosecution in two other state jurisdictions.
Kelly’s conviction in New York was widely seen as a milestone for the #MeToo movement: It was the first major sex abuse trial where the majority of accusers were black women.
It was also the first time Kelly faced criminal consequences for the abuse he for decades was rumoured to have inflicted on women and children.