R. Kelly: Toss trafficking case
His employees didn’t know girls were underage, lawyers say
A lawyer for disgraced R&B superstar R. Kelly argued before a skeptical federal appeals court Monday that his sex trafficking conviction should be overturned because his employees were in the dark about the age of his young victims.
Lawyer Jennifer Bonjean argued before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prosecutors didn't prove Kelly (photo, in 2019) headed up a racketeering organization that recruited underage girls for his sexual pleasure, because his underlings weren't acting with the purpose of breaking the law.
Judge Denny Chin, one of the three judges on the Manhattan appeals panel, pushed back on that assertion.
“Didn't the government prove that one of the purposes of this enterprise was to recruit girls so that Kelly could have illegal sexual activity?” he asked.
Bonjean replied, “What they did prove is that through the course of a period of time, there were perhaps efforts to pass along information, a phone number, to invite someone backstage. … There was no evidence that anyone went out there saying, ‘May I find out what your age is? Are you underage? Come back. We want to serve you up to Mr. Kelly.'”
Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in June 2022 on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, after a Brooklyn Federal Court jury found him guilty the prior September of one racketeering count and eight Mann Act counts for the decadeslong sex abuse scheme targeting young female fans, some of whom were minors.
“The appearance of these girls would be evidence enough, wouldn't it?” Judge Richard Sullivan asked Bonjean.
Chin suggested that Kelly's staff knew the victim's ages because they booked travel arrangements for the young girls, and pointed out that they packed the singer's iPad and recording devices, which could be used to make child pornography.
Said Bonjean, “We can't say an enterprise exists because unwitting employees are engaging in normal tasks that they do, particularly for high-profile people.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kayla Bensing rattled off a list of witnesses from his entourage and staff who knew or understood that the girls they were bringing into his orbit were underage.
“So this is all evidence that the jury was entitled to infer that Kelly's inner circle knew what was going on, that he was recruiting and maintaining underage women for sexual activity,” Bensing said.
She described, at the request of Sullivan, how several of Kelly's entourage knew he had herpes and that he was exposing his victims to the disease, in violation of state law. Bensing also argued that Kelly's sexual abuse would constitute forced labor, which the people in his organization knew about.
“They knew that Kelly was isolating his victims and they helped him do it, including by enforcing its punishments such as watching over them while they were confined to a bus for prolonged periods of time,” Bensing said.
“The defendant had a pattern in place of making these women feel isolated and ashamed, and he used the enterprise to make them feel like they were confined, and that they had no way out.”