Disgraced R&B star avoids lengthy add-on to 30-year prison sentence
CHICAGO — R. Kelly was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for child pornography and enticement of minors for sex but will serve all but one of those six counts simultaneously with a separate 30-year sentence on racketeering and sex trafficking convictions.
The sentence means Kelly could leave prison when he’s about 80. Prosecutors had asked Judge Harry Leinenweber to sentence the 56-yearold Grammy Award winner to 25 years and have him start serving them only after he completed his earlier sentence.
They argued that the stiffer punishment was justified by the seriousness of the crimes and what they said was Kelly’s lack of remorse.
Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said she was pleased with the judge’s decision.
“It’s the right outcome,” she told reporters after the hearing. “The judge was reasonable. He, I think, took into account both sides and ultimately was fair.” Leinenweber said at the outset of the hearing that he did not accept the government’s contention that Kelly used fear to woo underage girls for sex.
“The (government’s) whole theory of grooming, was sort of the opposite of fear of bodily harm,” the judge told the court. “It was the fear of lost love, lost affections (from Kelly)’. … It just doesn’t seem to me that it rises to the fear of bodily harm.”
Leinenweber ordered that Kelly serve one year in prison following the racketeering sentence, imposed last year in New York.
Two of Kelly’s accusers asked the judge to punish him harshly.
A representative read a statement written by “Jane,” a key prosecution witness, in which said she had lost her early aspirations to become a singer and her hopes for fulfilling relationships.
“I have lost my dreams to Robert Kelly,” the statement said. “I will never get back what I lost to Robert Kelly.”
Another accuser, who used the pseudonym “Nia,” addressed Kelly directly in court. She said Kelly would repeatedly pick at her supposed faults while he abused her.
“Now you are here … because there is something wrong with you,” she said. “No longer will you be able to harm children.”
Kelly rose from poverty in Chicago to become one of the world’s biggest R&B stars. Known for his smash hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and for sex-infused songs such as “Bump n’ Grind,” he sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.