R. Kelly is set to serve more time in prison after being convicted in his second federal trial.
A judge sentenced the disgraced R&B singer to 20 years in prison on Thursday after a Chicago jury found him guilty of sex crimes last year. But the judge also ruled that Kelly can serve nearly that entire sentence concurrently with his prior 30-year sentence, meaning he is only getting an additional year behind bars on top of that.
Kelly was convicted in September 2022 in Chicago on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticement. This came after a trial in which four women who accused Kelly of sexual abuse testified, including one who said she was abused by the singer on camera when she was 14. This tape was central to Kelly's prior 2008 trial, which ended in his acquittal on child pornography charges. The woman did not testify in the earlier trial.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A Brooklyn jury previously convicted Kelly on racketeering and sex trafficking charges in 2021, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, which he is now serving. Prosecutors had wanted Kelly to serve 25 additional years after the Chicago conviction, arguing that "the only way to ensure Kelly does not reoffend is to impose a sentence that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life."
But Kelly's lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, said in a court filing that even just with the 30-year sentence, the 56-year-old would "have to defy all statistical odds to make it out of prison alive."
-
August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
-
New Mexico to investigate death of Gene Hackman, wifespeed read The Oscar-winning actor and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their home with no signs of foul play
