R. Kell was sentenced to 30 years in a sex trafficking case

Infamous R&B superstar R. Kelly was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for using his popularity to sexually assault young fans, including just boys, under a systematic decades-old scheme.

With tears and anger, several of Kelly’s defendants told the court and the singer himself that he had cheated and abused them.

“You made me do something that broke my soul. “I literally wish I had died because of how depressed you felt,” said an unnamed survivor, addressing Kelly, who had her hands folded and her eyes downcast.

“Do you remember?” I ask.

Kelly, 55, did not comment or show any reaction to his quote, which also included a $100,000 fine. He has pleaded not guilty and intends to appeal the conviction.

The multi-platinum, Grammy-winning songwriter was convicted last year of racketeering and sex trafficking in a trial that voted in favor of defendants who were previously keen to ignore their stories for being black women.

The victims were “trying to be heard and confessed,” one of his defendants said during sentencing. “We are no longer the people we used to be.”

A third woman, speaking through tears and smell, said Kelly’s conviction renewed her confidence in the legal system.

“I lost hope once,” he told the court and prosecutors, “but my faith was restored.”

The woman said Kelly destroyed her after going to a concert when she was 17.

“I was scared, naive and didn’t know how to handle the situation,” he said, so he didn’t raise his voice right away.

“Silence,” he said, “is a very lonely place.”

Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bongin, said she was “devastated” by the sentence and saddened by the hearing.

“She is a human being. She feels what others feel. But that doesn’t mean he can take responsibility the way the government wants him and others to. “Because he doesn’t agree with the descriptions that are made of him,” he said.

The proposal coincides with the slow decline of Kelly, best known for his work, including the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and the cult classic “Trapped in the Closet,” a versatile story of sexual infidelity and intrigue.

He was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums, even as allegations of violence against girls by him became public in the 1990s. He pleaded guilty to child pornography in Chicago in 2008, when a jury acquitted him.

There was widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual harassment until the #MeToo calculation was made, which hit Crescendo after the release of the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly”.

“I hope this verdict is my own testimony that no matter how strong, rich or famous your abuser is or how small he feels, justice only hears the truth,” Brooklyn Attorney Broon Piss said Wednesday.

A federal court in Brooklyn has convicted a convicted singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, after learning that he used his managers and assistants to meet and subjugate girls.

Several defendants testified that Kelly incited them to the perversive and sadistic whims of minors.

Defendants argued that they were instructed to sign confidentiality forms and would be subject to threats and punishment, including violent beatings, if they violated what were called “slave rules”.

Some said they believed the videos he made during sex with them would be used against them if they exposed what was going on.

According to affidavit, Kelly gave several of the defendants herpes in order not to reveal that he had STDs, forcing a teenager to have sex with a naked girl who came out of his garage, came down from the boxing ring and filmed an infamous one. video showing a victim. Feces on her face as punishment for breaking her rules.

“The horrors your victim endured,” US District Judge Anne Donnelly said when she was sentenced. “No price was too high to pay for her happiness.”

There was also evidence of a fraudulent marriage scheme designed to protect Kelly after she feared she had fertilized R&B phenomenon Aaliyah in 1994, when she was just 15 years old. She was then 27 years old.

Alia worked with Kelly, who wrote and created her debut album in 1994. Age is nothing more than a number.. He died in a plane crash in 2001, aged 22.

Kelly did not testify at the trial, but his lawyers at the time portrayed his defendants as lovers and members of a group that did not force him to do anything against his will and stayed with him because they liked his lifestyle.

His current lawyers have argued that he should not have been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison because he had a traumatic childhood with “severe and prolonged sexual abuse, poverty and violence as a child”.

As a “literate” adult, the star was “repeatedly cheated and financially abused, often by people who paid him to protect her,” her lawyers said.

The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted or assaulted unless they come forward. The women who spoke at Kelly’s sentencing were identified only by name or aliases.

Kelly has been in jail since 2019 without bail. He still faces child pornography and misconduct charges in Chicago, where his trial is scheduled for August 15.

No matter how many hits he releases, his legacy will not be remembered for his voice, but for the voices of brave women and men who revealed to the world what a monster R. Kelly truly is. “- said Steve Francis of the Federal Homeland Security Investigation, who helped prepare the case.