R&B singer R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of nine counts in 2021, with one charge of racketeering and eight counts of violations of the Mann Act, a sex trafficking law.
This was confirmed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York on Wednesday, June 29.
U.S Prosecutors had initially requested that District Court Judge Ann Donnelly sentenced 55-year-old Kelly to more than 25 years.
However, his defense attorneys asked for 10 years or fewer, arguing that the prosecutors’ request was “tantamount to a life sentence.”
Judge Donnelly in sentencing R. Kelly stated, “You left in your wake a trail of broken lives.” According to reports, she also took into consideration during sentencing Kelly’s own traumatic childhood, during which his attorneys said he was repeatedly sexually abused by a family member and a landlord.
She said, “It may explain, at least in part, what led to your behavior…It most surely is not an excuse.”
CNN in an article stated that prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York accused Kelly of using his status as a celebrity and a “network of people at his disposal to target girls, boys and young women for his own sexual gratification.”
The federal trial lasted for approximately five weeks and saw testimonies from witnesses who said they were sexually and physically abused by the artist, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.