R. Kelly gets extra prison time after latest sex abuse conviction

By Bernd Debusmann Jr & Ian YoungsBBC News

Disgraced singer R. Kelly must spend an extra year in prison on top of a 30-year sentence he is already serving.

Kelly was jailed in June 2022 for three decades for sex trafficking and racketeering after a trial in New York.

Several months later, he was convicted in a second federal trial in Chicago of enticing minors for sex and producing child sexual imagery.

He has now received a 20-year term for those crimes, but 19 will be served at the same time as the previous sentence.

If served in full, he will be behind bars until he is in his mid-80s.

Federal prosecutors were seeking a 25-year sentence in the second case, higher than required under federal sentencing guidelines. They said Kelly's crimes were made worse by the fact that he filmed them, with some of the footage later becoming available online.

"Because Kelly is Kelly, more people have watched child pornography," they said in a memo. "The effects of Kelly's conduct are wide-ranging, incalculable and irreversible."

The memo argued that Kelly has an "insatiable" desire to abuse children, and that a lengthy sentence was required to "protect the community" from further harm.

Kelly's defence attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, had asked the judge to allow Kelly to serve his latest sentence concurrently with the previous sentence, meaning he would have served them at the same time. She said a consecutive sentence would amount to a "second life sentence".

She also accused prosecutors of using an "embellished" narrative to "inflame" perceptions of the former R&B star.

During the Chicago trial, the victim - known by the pseudonym "Jane" - testified that Kelly sexually abused her hundreds of times before she turned 18.

Three videos of the abuse were shown to jurors during the trial. Four other women also accused Kelly abusing them as children.

In his previous trial in New York, jurors heard that Kelly trafficked women for sexual abuse across the US, with help from his managers and other members of his entourage.

The Grammy-winning singer - best-known for songs such as Ignition (Remix) and the hugely popular 1996 anthem I Believe I Can Fly - is among the highest-profile musicians accused of abuse in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

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