On Thursday, R. Kelly was given a 30-year prison term for racketeering and sex trafficking, in addition to the 20-year sentence he received for child pornography and enticement of kids for sex. According to the AP, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber sentenced Kelly to a year in jail in New York last year for racketeering.
Before Kelly’s sentencing on Thursday in his birthplace of Chicago, the main concern was whether or not Leinenweber would order the 56-year-old Grammy winner to serve the sentence concurrently with the New York term.
The prosecution had admitted that Kelly had no chance of survival if he had been sentenced to a very long prison term in addition to the one he received in New York. They demanded it, saying his abuse of children and lack of contrition warranted it.
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The sentence Kelly received on Thursday guarantees that he will serve no more than 31 years in prison. That gives him a window of opportunity to get out of prison before he dies, at the ripe old age of 80. Leinenweber stated early on in the hearing that he did not believe the government’s claim that Kelly had used fear to entice minors for sexual acts.
The judge said that the government’s grooming approach was “kind of the antithesis of dread of bodily injury.” “I was afraid of losing Kelly’s love and affection,” he said. Nothing about it makes me think I’m in imminent danger, at least not physically.
A calm At the outset of the hearing, the judge asked Kelly if he had checked important presentencing paperwork for any errors. Kelly responded briefly. Kelly answered, “Your honor, I have discussed this with my lawyer.” Three counts of manufacturing child porn and three counts of enticing of kids for sex were among the 13 charges on which a Chicago jury found Kelly guilty last year. Kelly had already risen from obscurity in Chicago to become a global R&B icon before all this happened.
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