R Kelly’s appeal against 20-year sentence quashed by Judge.
R. Kelly was given a 20-year jail term in Chicago for federal sex crimes, which was upheld by a federal appeals court.
R. Kelly’s legal team argued that his indictment on charges of child enticement and child pornography was filed after the statute of limitations had expired, but the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected their arguments.
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His defense team argued that the 20-year sentence was “unduly harsh” and requested a new sentencing hearing in appeals court.
Judge Amy St. Eve said in a unanimous decision that “Robert Sylvester Kelly abused underage girls for years,” according to a CBS News report.
“He long avoided punishment by using a cunning plan to keep victims silent. But those misdeeds ultimately came up with him in recent years. However, Kelly believes he postponed the charges long enough to completely avoid them, putting up a statute of limitations argument,” he went on.
“Even after watching those disgusting tapes, an impartial jury found Kelly guilty but cleared him of several crimes because the statute says otherwise, so we uphold his conviction. The judge came to the conclusion that the man is not immune to punishment and that the sentence imposed was both procedurally correct and substantially reasonable, particularly in light of the terrible circumstances.
A federal jury in Chicago found R. Kelly guilty on six counts of child enticement and pornography in September of 2022.
Although he was found guilty of sexually abusing three children, including his then-14-year-old goddaughter, he was cleared of seven additional allegations. He received a 20-year prison sentence in February 2023.
The sentencing occurred just over six months after he was found guilty by a federal jury in 2021 of child sex offenses and racketeering in New York, and was given a 30-year jail sentence. Although he is currently fighting the New York conviction, he is serving the terms concurrently.
The accusations and sentence against R. Kelly are being upheld, coinciding with the overturning of the rape conviction of disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein in New York the same week.
He was found guilty and given a 23-year prison sentence in February 2020. In 2022, he was charged with an additional 16 years in Los Angeles, to be spent separately. The ruling in New York has no bearing on his sentence in California.
