Names and faces
■ Grammy Award-winning R&B singer R. Kelly was correctly sentenced to 20 years in prison on child sex convictions in Chicago, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. Jurors in 2022 convicted the artist, born Robert Kelly, on three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex. In his appeal, Kelly argued that Illinois’ former and shorter statute of limitations on child sex crime prosecutions should have applied to his Chicago case rather than current law permitting charges while an accuser is still alive. He also argued that charges involving one accuser should have been tried separately from the charges tied to three other accusers due to video evidence federal prosecutors say showed him abusing a girl. The accuser identified only as Jane testified for the first time that she was 14 when the video was taken. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Friday’s ruling noted that jurors acquitted Kelly on 7 of the 13 counts against him “even after viewing those abhorrent tapes.” The appeals court also rejected Kelly’s argument that he should not have been prosecuted since the allegations occurred while Illinois law required prosecution of child sex crime charges within ten years. In a written statement, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said they plan to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the decision and “pursue all of his appellate remedies until we free R. Kelly.” “We are disappointed in the ruling, but our fight is far from over,” she said. Kelly was ordered to serve the 20 years from the Chicago case simultaneously with the 30-year sentence imposed in 2022 in New York for federal racketeering and sex trafficking convictions. Kelly has separately appealed the New York sentence.
■ Actress Ashley Judd and musician Aloe Blacc helped the Biden administration promote Tuesday its new national strategy to prevent suicide. Judd’s mother, country star Naomi Judd, died nearly two years ago. Blacc’s frequent collaborator, Tim Bergling, died in 2018. Both were on hand as Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, helped unveil the Democratic administration’s blueprint for reducing suicides in the United States. More than 130 people a day kill themselves, he said. Judd’s mother lived most of her 76 years with an untreated sickness and, on the day she died, “the disease of mental illness was lying to her,” Ashley Judd said during a discussion moderated by Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy with Blacc and Shelby Rowe, executive director of the Suicide Prevention Research Center. “She deserved better,” Judd said about her mother. Judd said she also has suffered from depression and has had a different outcome because of treatment. “I carry a message of hope,” she said.