R Kelly convicted of child pornography and sex abuse

Chicago court federal jury has convicted the popular R&B star R. Kelly on Wednesday over charges of producing child pornography and luring girls for sex after a trial that went on for a month. This decision is yet another big blow to the Grammy Award winning singer who is included among the world’s biggest R&B stars.

Prosecutors had won convictions on six out of the 13 counts against him, with many carrying long mandatory sentence terms. But they lost the marquee count which included Kelly and his then-business manager having successfully manipulated his state child pornography trial in 2008. Both of Kelly’s co-defendants, including his 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.

Asked by media outside court how Kelly felt about the verdict, his lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said, “Mr. Kelly is used to bad news.” She said, “He’s still got many fights to fight. But what he did say is that he had a sense of relief that this particular case was in the past now.”

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The Chicago jury verdict comes months after a New York federal judge sentenced Kelly to 30 years in prison for racketeering and sex trafficking. Based on that New York judge sentence, 55 year old Kelly won’t be eligible for release from prison until he is around 80 years of age. Two more sexual misconduct trials still are in order against Kelly, one in Minnesota and one in state court in Chicago.

Kelly was facing 13 counts. A single count of child pornography carries a conviction of mandatory sentence of minimum 10 years, while receipt of child pornography carries minimum of five years. After deliberating for 11 hours over period of two days, Chicago jurors convicted Kelly of three counts each of producing child pornography and enticement, while acquitting him of charges of obstruction of justice, one count of production of child porn and three counts of receiving child porn.