R. Kelly Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison For S*x Trafficking

The “I Believe I Can Fly” hitmaker has been sentenced to 30 years of prison for the crime of sex trafficking women and children. Robert Sylvester Kelly – popularly recognized as the singer R. Kelly – had a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of a lifetime for his crime, but his defense team argued he should’ve only received 10 years.

The singer’s legal team argued that the man’s excuse was the “prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence” that he experienced when he was younger. But that did not sway the decision of the jurors of the US District Court in New York.

“Jane Doe,” an alias given to the victims of his crime, sent a statement to the man after he was sentenced as if it acted as a closure to his years of trapping these individuals.

“The pied piper of R&B, both in music and in technique and in approach. Success and love… you presented these glittering gems as if they were gold,” read the statement from one of them.

“With every addition of a new victim, you grew in wickedness, cockiness, diminishing any form of humanity or self-awareness, which soon became the breeding ground for your God-like complex. You were doing, saying, and encouraging despicable things that no one should be doing. We reclaim our names from beneath the shadows of your afflicted trauma.”

The second statement from another victim read, “You are an abuser, you are shameless, you are disgusting.”

Judge Ann M. Donnelly spoke as she announced the sentence, “The public has to be protected from behaviors like this.” R. Kelly was found guilt for one count of racketeering and eight counts of sex trafficking, all for his own sexual gratification.

The federal trial held last year had victims who’ve been sexually exploited and abused by the man report and give their testimonies. The investigation later found that R. Kelly was the ringleader of the scheme and he’s been doing this for over 20 years with the help of his entourage, managers, and security guards.

The prosecutor mentioned, “[Kelly had] a network of people at his disposal to target girls, boys and young women for his own sexual gratification.”

“Indeed, the defendant’s decades of crime appear to have been fuelled by narcissism and a belief that his musical talent absolved him of any need to conform his conduct – no matter how predatory, harmful, humiliating or abusive to others – to the strictures of the law.”

“The music, the fame, and the celebrity meant he could do whatever he wanted,” added Assistant US attorney Nadia Shihata.

At the trial, his previous marriage to singer Aaliyah when she was 15 in 1994 was also brought up. Aaliyah’s identity was faked as an 18-year-old by bribing an official.