A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday sentenced former singer R. Kelly to 20 years in prison after a jury found him guilty in September of several sex crimes, including possession of child pornography.
However, the convict is to serve almost the entire sentence concurrently with an earlier 30-year sentence related to the sexual abuse of women, the AP agency reported.
Judge Harry Leibenwater ruled that the 56-year-old artist will have to spend one more year in prison after his initial sentence. According to AP, he can think about returning to freedom around his 80th birthday.
Robert Sylvester Kelly’s first sentence was handed down last June by a judge in New York, where a jury found him guilty of all counts, including extortion and violating the sex-trafficking law.
The former R&B star spent two decades using his fame to systematically abuse young women and minors, both sexually and psychologically, according to prosecutors.
BREAKING: A federal judge has just sentenced singer R. Kelly to 20 years in prison for child sex crimes. The jury found that he had produced three videos of himself sexually abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter. pic.twitter.com/b91LmdZlAW
— Simon Ateba (@simonstheba) February 23, 2023
The subsequent trial in Chicago was related to a pornographic video the singer allegedly made years ago with a then 14-year-old girl who he later threatened, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors had asked Judge Leibenwater to impose a 25-year sentence, which Kelly would begin serving after the end of the first. However, the judge favored the defense proposal, rejecting the prosecution’s argument that the convict used fear to force underage girls into intimate intercourse.
According to the AP, allegations of abuse of women began to surface around Kelly in the 1990s, when he was at the height of his fame. Yet he continued to sell millions of albums. His biggest hit is 1996’s I Believe I Can Fly, which won three Grammy Awards.
