For a 2 and half decades of allegations and a seven-week federal court trial in New York, R&B singer R. Kelly was found guilty of sexual exploitation of a child, bribery, racketeering, and sex trafficking with five victims. R. Kelly could face a prison term of ten years to life.
The foreperson read the jury’s verdict to Judge Ann Donnelly, and Kelly remained still.
There were fourteen underlying actions in addition to the racketeering charge. The government had proven twelve of the actions, involving five victims: Aaliyah, Jerhonda Pace, Jane, and Stephanie, according to the jury.
Sonja, an accused victim, was accused of three offenses that were later found to be unfounded. (Most of the alleged victims went by their first names or pseudonyms.) The government just required proof of two of the racketeering activities to convict.
R.Kelly was found guilty of being the leader of a criminal operation whose objective was to lure girls, boys, and women into prostitution by a jury of seven men and five women in the Eastern District of New York.
In respect to awaiting punishment in the New York case, Kelly will face a second federal trial in Illinois on child pornography and obstruction of justice charges. Some of the charges arise from a child pornography trial in Chicago in 2008, in which he was acquitted on all counts.
Kelly is also facing aggravated criminal sexual assault charges in Cook County, Illinois, where he was charged in February 2019 with four victims (three of whom were minors).
