Following Kelly’s 30-year jail sentence in New York, the judge adds a one-year sentence to be served.
Chicago, Illinois — R. Kelly was sentenced to one year in prison on Thursday in Chicago for federal child pornography crimes. A federal jury convicted the disgraced singer on six of thirteen counts last September, including three counts of producing child pornography and enticing minors into illicit sexual activity.
Judge Harry Leinenweber essentially sentenced Kelly to one year in jail on Thursday at Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, adding to the 30-year prison sentence he’s already serving after being convicted in New York in 2021 of sexual exploitation of a child, racketeering, bribery, and sex trafficking. (The singer is currently appealing the sentence in New York.)
Officially, Leinenweber sentenced Kelly to 20 years in prison, 19 of which Kelly would spend concurrently with the New York sentence, plus one year for the Chicago counts.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors asked Judge Harry Leinenweber to sentence Kelly — born Robert Sylvester Kelly — to 25 years in prison, a sentence that is 25 years longer than sentencing guidelines recommend, and to serve it after completing his time in the New York case, where he is already serving 30 years.
Jennifer Bonjean, Kelly’s lawyer, had urged in a document that her client should be sentenced to ten years in prison, at the lower end of the sentencing guidelines. His attorneys also submitted requests to have the conviction overturned or to have a new trial granted, which the judge declined earlier this month. Bonjean suggested a 14-year sentence at Thursday’s sentencing, which would run concurrently with his New York sentence. A consecutive jail sentence, according to Bonjean, would practically mean life in prison for Kelly. “In prison, black males with diabetes do not live into their 80s,” she told the judge.
Before sentencing, Leinenweber, who is in his 80s, admitted that Kelly’s age at the end of his New York sentence would be taken into account in his Chicago sentence, and commented that octogenarians are more concerned about their prostate and arthritis than young ladies. (If he serves his entire 31-year sentence, Kelly, now 56, will be in his mid-80s when he is released.) The court also mentioned that the Chicago federal case was originally scheduled to be prosecuted before the New York case, but Covid protocols changed that. He claimed he would have sentenced Kelly to 240 months if it had gone first, which appears to be the foundation of his judgment on Thursday.
Three victim impact statements were shared with the court prior to sentencing. The statement was read aloud by Christopher Brown, the attorney for “Jane,” who was key to the case and the preceding 2008 Chicago trial. In it, she stated that, in addition to her virginity, she had lost her dignity, dreams, and childhood to Robert Kelly. She admitted to having suicidal thoughts, described the “degrading” regulations she was forced to, and described how the videos he produced of him sexually assaulting her changed her life. “Robert broke me,” she added in the statement. “I’ll always be the girl who Robert Kelly pissed on.” “Robert Kelly ought to remain in jail for the rest of his natural born life,” she continued.
Another victim, “Nia,” detailed how she met Kelly as an insecure adolescent at a mall in Georgia, and how he made her feel special when he invited her to his show in Minnesota. She repeated her prior trial testimony, describing that he had put her up in a hotel, where he showed up in the morning, forced her to undress, and then “molested me,” and related another event a few months later at his Chicago studio. “You completely wounded me on the inside,” she testified in court on Thursday.
“Pauline,” the victim, also addressed the court. She admitted that she “had once loved Robert,” but meeting him has led to her seeking therapy for sadness and suicidal ideation. During the sentencing, she stated that she was “best friends” with Jane and that she “lost” her friendship, and that her mental health had suffered as a result of her contact with Kelly.
Three victim impact statements were shared with the court prior to sentencing. The statement was read aloud by Christopher Brown, the attorney for “Jane,” who was key to the case and the preceding 2008 Chicago trial. In it, she stated that, in addition to her virginity, she had lost her dignity, dreams, and childhood to Robert Kelly. She admitted to having suicidal thoughts, described the “degrading” regulations she was forced to, and described how the videos he produced of him sexually assaulting her changed her life. “Robert broke me,” she added in the statement. “I’ll always be the girl who Robert Kelly pissed on.” “Robert Kelly ought to remain in jail for the rest of his natural born life,” she continued.
Another victim, “Nia,” detailed how she met Kelly as an insecure adolescent at a mall in Georgia, and how he made her feel special when he invited her to his show in Minnesota. She repeated her prior trial testimony, describing that he had put her up in a hotel, where he showed up in the morning, forced her to undress, and then “molested me,” and related another event a few months later at his Chicago studio. “You completely wounded me on the inside,” she testified in court on Thursday.
“Pauline,” the victim, also addressed the court. She admitted that she “had once loved Robert,” but meeting him has led to her seeking therapy for sadness and suicidal ideation. During the sentencing, she stated that she was “best friends” with Jane and that she “lost” her friendship, and that her mental health had suffered as a result of her contact with Kelly.
Last year, a federal jury in Chicago found Kelly guilty on three charges of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a child after a dramatic, violent five-week trial. The video at the heart of the federal Chicago investigation was also used in the 2008 child pornography trial in which he was acquitted, involving “Jane,” Kelly’s goddaughter, who tearfully testified that Kelly began filming him sexually abusing her when she was 14 years old. During the trial, some of the cassettes were played. Prosecutors also attempted to establish last year that Kelly’s then-business manager Derrel McDavid manipulated the 2008 trial, but the jury rejected that argument and acquitted Kelly and his two co-defendants, McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, of conspiring to get the tape aired in court.
Kelly is also facing charges in Minnesota for prostitution with a juvenile and soliciting a minor for sexual reasons.
