Verdict In R Kelly Federal Trial In Illinois: R. Kelly and his two co-defendants were charged with a total of 13 crimes. Jurors deliberated for about ten hours after listening to three weeks of testimony.
Kelly was convicted on three of four counts of production of child p0rnography and three of five counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal $exual activity.
He was acquitted on one child p0rnography count, one count of $exual exploitation of a child, one count of aggravated criminal $exual abuse, as well as four conspiracy counts (including one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and one count of conspiracy to receive child p0rnography).
Verdict In R Kelly Federal Trial In Illinois
Derrel McDavid, Kelly’s former accountant, and business manager was acquitted of the following charges: conspiracy to receive child p0rnography, receiving child p0rnography, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Milton Brown, Kelly’s former assistant, was acquitted of one charge of conspiracy to receive child p0rnography.
Jennifer Bonjean, Kelly’s attorney, said she is considering filing an appeal. Judge Harry Leinenweber did not set a sentencing date. According to the United States Sentencing Commission, people convicted of federal child p0rnography charges received an average sentence of 23 years in prison in 2019. In Chicago, a conviction of just one count of child p0rnography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, while receipt of child p0rnography carries a mandatory minimum of five years. Judges can order that defendants sentenced earlier in separate cases serve their new sentence simultaneously with or only after the first term is fully served. Federal inmates must serve at least 85% of their sentences.
In June, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison on his conviction in a New York federal court on racketeering and pr0stitution charges. He currently has two more trials pending in state courts (one in Illinois and one in Minnesota).
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Convicted of Child P0rn & Enticing Girls For $ex
A federal jury in Chicago convicted R. Kelly on Wednesday of producing child p0rnography and enticing girls for $ex after a monthlong trial in his hometown, delivering another legal blow to the Grammy Award winning singer who was once one of the world’s biggest R&B stars.
Prosecutors won convictions on six of the 13 counts against him, with many of the convictions carrying long mandatory sentences. But the government lost the marquee count — that Kelly and his then-business manager successfully rigged his state child p0rnography trial in 2008.
Both of his co-defendants, including longtime business manager Derrel McDavid — who had told jurors that testimony from four Kelly accusers had led him to change his mind about Kelly’s believability — were acquitted of all charges.
The trial was, in ways, a do-over of Kelly’s 2008 child p0rnography trial, with a key video critical to both. Kelly, who shed tears of joy when jurors acquitted him in 2008, gave a thumbs-up sign to spectators after Wednesday’s verdict but otherwise showed little emotion.
Before Kelly was returned to federal lockup, McDavid hugged Kelly, who rose from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a superstar.
Testimony of Victim – Jane, Nia, Pauline, and Tracy
All four Kelly accusers who testified went by pseudonyms or their first names: Jane, Nia, Pauline and Tracy. Some cried when describing the abuse but otherwise spoke calmly and with confidence. A fifth accuser, Brittany, didn’t testify, and jurors acquitted Kelly of the one charge related to her.
Four of his six convictions were tied directly to Jane and relied largely on her testimony.
She was the government’s star witness and also pivotal to the trial fixing charge, of which he was acquitted, and which accused him of using threats and payoffs to get her to lie to a grand jury before his 2008 trial.
A single video, which state prosecutors said was Kelly abusing a girl of around 14, was the focal point of that trial. Three of the child porn charges that Kelly was convicted of Wednesday were related to that video and others depicting Jane.
Jane, 37, said publicly for the first time at the just-ended trial that the girl in the video was her at age 14 and that the man was Kelly, who would have been around 30.
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