R Kelly

US Singer R Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his superstardom to subject young fans — some just children — to systematic sexual abuse.

US District Judge Ann Donnelly made the ruling on Wednesday following witness accounts from several survivors who attested to how Kelly’s exploitation.

“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” said one unnamed survivor said in court, directly addressing Kelly, who remained silent.

Singer R Kelly Guilty of Sex Trafficking

Last September, a US jury found the “I Believe I Can Fly” hitmaker guilty of sexual offences, including the most serious of racketeering.

To convict Kelly on the most serious charge of racketeering, jurors had to find him guilty of at least two of 14 “predicate acts” — the crimes elemental to the wider pattern of illegal wrongdoing.

The 54-year-old celebrity was found guilty of systematically recruiting women and teenagers for sex, before grooming and brutally abusing them.

He faces up to life in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for May 4.

R Kelly was also convicted on all eight charges of violating the Mann Act, an anti-sex trafficking law.

He was found to have trafficked women between different US states and produced child pornography.

During the trial, prosecutors detailed how his managers, security guards and other entourage members worked to assist him in his criminal enterprise.

Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008, and he settled the lawsuit.

https://www.kenyaforum.net/arts-sports-culture/singer-r-kelly-guilty-of-sex-trafficking/