Judge Dismisses R Kelly’s Appeal Against A 20-year Term
A federal appeals court upheld R. Kelly’s 20-year jail sentence for federal sex crimes in Chicago.
The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has rejected R. Kelly’s legal team’s claim that his indictment on child enticement and child pornography charges was submitted after the statute of limitations had expired.
His defense team sought a second sentencing hearing in appeals court, claiming that the 20-year term was “unduly harsh.”
In a unanimous ruling, Judge Amy St. Eve wrote, according to CBS News.
For years, Robert Sylvester Kelly abused underage girls.”
“By employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet, he long evaded consequences. In recent years, though, those crimes finally caught up with him. But Kelly—interposing a statute-of-limitations defence—thinks he delayed the charges long enough to elude them entirely,” he continued.
“The statute says otherwise, so we affirm his conviction. … An even-handed jury found Kelly guilty, acquitting him on several charges even after viewing those abhorrent tapes. No statute of limitations saves him, and the resulting sentence was procedurally proper and—especially under these appalling circumstances—substantively fair,” the judge concluded.
In September 2022, a federal jury in Chicago convicted R. Kelly on six counts of child pornography and child enticement.
He was acquitted on seven other charges, but convicted of sexually abusing three minors, including his 14-year-old goddaughter. In February 2023, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Just over half a year ago, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a federal jury in New York convicted him of child sex crimes and racketeering in 2021. He is serving the terms simultaneously, but he is currently appealing his New York conviction.
The accusations and sentence against R. Kelly were upheld the same week that notorious producer Harvey Weinstein’s New York rape case was overturned.
In February 2020, he was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in jail. He was charged with an additional 16 years, to be served separately in Los Angeles in 2022. The New York ruling has no bearing on his California sentence.
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