R. Kelly is found guilty: Listen to the allegations 2:31
(CNN Spanish) — R&B singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Wednesday, sources said United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New Yorkfollowing his conviction last year on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges stemming from his years of efforts to use his fame to seduce the victims he has sexually abused.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Kelly, 55, to more than 25 years in prison, while her defense attorneys asked for 10 years or less, saying the prosecutors’ request was “equivalent to life in prison.”
Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, wore a tan prison uniform, dark-rimmed glasses and a black mask at Wednesday’s hearing, which was also attended by the victims of the case. The court heard testimony from seven of Kelly’s victims, including Jane Doe 2, who testified in court.
“It’s been 23 years since we met and since then you’ve bullied a lot of girls,” he said, turning to Kelly. He later added, “Now it’s your turn to have your freedom taken.”
A jury last September convicted Kelly of nine counts, including one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act. Prosecutors in New York’s Eastern District accused Kelly of using her celebrity status and a “network of people available to her to approach girls, boys and young women for her own sexual gratification.”
The five-week federal trial in Brooklyn included testimony from witnesses who said Kelly sexually and physically abused her. The court also heard from people involved in orchestrating the disgraced R&B singer’s marriage to the late singer Aaliyah in 1994, when she was just 15 and he was an adult, after she believed she was pregnant .
“No one can undo the damage done to these victims,” attorney Gloria Allred, who represented three testifying victims, told reporters in court Wednesday. “But at least it’s time Mr. Kelly was held accountable.”
Defense attorneys and prosecutors argued in court Wednesday over whether Kelly could pay a fine. The defense said he was “very close to neediness” and could not. Prosecutors disagreed, saying money from the sale of some of his music rights and millions of dollars in royalties from Sony could cover any fines.
In the nine months since her conviction, Kelly has replaced her entire legal team with Jennifer Bonjean and her firm. Bonjean is the attorney who helped Bill Cosby have his sexual assault conviction overturned and also represented Cosby in a civil case he lost in court this month.
“We were prepared for this,” Bonjean said of the extrajudicial sentencing. “We are now prepared to appeal this objection.”
Kelly is being held in a federal prison in Brooklyn and was due to be returned to Chicago after his conviction, where he faces another federal trial on disability and child pornography charges in August.
R. Kelly exits a hearing in Chicago in March 2019.
Uncovering childhood trauma
In more than 14 hours of interviews with psychiatric experts, Kelly said her closest relationship was with her mother. His earliest memories were of seeing his mother perform as a singer in a band called “Six Pack” and he would often accompany her to McDonald’s where she would have coffee and they would share a cake.
Kelly never knew her father and described her mother’s death as the most tragic event of her life. According to a letter from Renee Sorrentino, a clinical assistant professor at the School of Medicine, she often went to McDonald’s to smell the coffee and remember her Harvard medicine.
“To me, the ‘M’ stands for Mom. Going to McDonald’s always means being close to my mom,” Kelly said.
But his childhood was also marked by trauma.
Kelly watched a childhood sweetheart drown when he was a little boy. And people interviewed by psychiatric experts say Kelly has been sexually abused repeatedly since he was a boy of 6 or 7, his lawyer wrote, saying he was molested by his older sister and also by a landlord, sometimes “on a weekly basis “.
Sorrentino said in her letter that Kelly’s childhood sexual abuse may have contributed to her “hypersexuality,” or difficulty controlling sexual urges, and believes it was a factor in her criminal convictions.
While Kelly was convicted of sexually exploiting a minor, Sorrentino refused to diagnose Kelly with pedophilia because he told her his “sexual behavior had never affected pre-adolescents,” he said.
Faith, another woman who testified at Kelly’s trial, refuted the defense argument in her victim impact testimony Wednesday, saying her own father was also sexually abused as a child but “never abused me.”
support for the singer
Among the letters calling for a shorter sentence for Kelly is one from Diana Copeland, Kelly’s former assistant, who testified as a government witness and said she wrote a letter in support of Kelly because it was “the right thing to do”. be.
“God does not want us to throw people away,” Copeland wrote. “If we have the courage to care about both the perpetrators and the victims, we can all rise up.”
Joycelyn Savage, who was considered by prosecutors to be Kelly’s victim, also remains a supporter.
“Robert and I are very much in love and it breaks my heart that the government has created a narrative that I am a victim,” Savage wrote. “I am a grown woman and can speak for myself, so I wanted to deliver this letter to the court.”
In her letter, Savage announced that she is now engaged to Kelly.
Prosecutors received threats
Before sentencing, a Chicago man who attended Kelly’s Brooklyn trial was arrested and charged with threatening the three federal prosecutors who were pursuing Kelly, a copy of his warrant shows.
Christopher Gunn was arrested on Saturday for allegedly making threats of death or serious injury to prosecutors.
According to the warrant, in October, shortly after Kelly’s conviction, Gunn posted a video on his YouTube channel that showed a picture of the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where the women work. Prosecutors believe a voice narrating the video is Gunn’s, and he says, “There they are. That’s where they work… We’ll meet the office,” and gives the names of all three prosecutors.
“If you don’t have the guts for the shit we’re about to do, I’m asking you to step down,” he reportedly said in the video.
Prosecutors also analyzed a CashApp account linked to Gunn, which shows multiple transactions from February 26, 2021 to June 1 that suggest Gunn “was involved in the sale of firearm ammunition related to the Kelly affair,” they said you. Transactions included payouts of $20 with descriptions such as “30 rounds… R Kelly free.” CNN has reached out to an attorney for Kelly’s for comment.
Prosecutors believe Gunn was planning to attend Kelly’s sentencing on Wednesday after he posted another video saying he had a “place” for supporters to gather near the courthouse.
CNN has reached out to an attorney for Gunn, who is expected to have a detention hearing Wednesday.