R Kelly has been found guilty in his federal child pornography trial.
The shamed ’90s R and B sensation, 55, was convicted on Wednesday (14.09.22) of six out of 13 counts following a month-long trial in his native Chicago.
It comes after Kelly – real name Robert Sylvester Kelly – had a 30-year prison sentence handed to him in June after he was found guilty of sex-trafficking and racketeering in a separate federal case in Brooklyn.
Jurors convicted him in the Chicago trial after 11 hours of deliberation that started on Tuesday afternoon. (13.09.22)
Kelly was accused of videoing himself having sex with underage girls, as well as of rigging his 2008 state trial on child porn charges, for which he was acquitted.
His co-defendant Derrell McDavid – Kelly’s former business manager – was charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by rigging the 2008 trial, as well as two counts of receiving child porn.
Another co-defendant, Kelly’s associate Milton Brown, faced a count of conspiring to receive child porn.
Both have been found not guilty on all counts according to CBS Chicago.
Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Pozolo told jurors: “Robert Kelly abused many girls over many years.
“He committed horrible crimes against children… all these years later, the hidden side of Robert Kelly has come out.”
Damning evidence against Kelly included graphic videos of the Grammy-winner abusing his then-14-year-old goddaughter, who became the prosecution’s star witness in the case when she testified under the name Jane.
Pozolo said in her closing argument before the jury retired for deliberations: “That child, who had no prior sexual experiences in her life, was forced to lay on that floor while that man sitting right over there urinated on her.
“That degrading act is forever captured on that video. That abuse is forever memorialized.”
Now 37, Jane testified that Kelly had sex with her “innumerable times”, including with other teenage girls he had asked her to recruit into their relationship.
Kelly’s attorneys branded prosecution witnesses “perjurers, blackmailers and extortionists”.
The new conviction could add years to Kelly’s existing 30-year sentence.
Two further trials are also pending against the singer – one in Minnesota and another in state court in Chicago.
