A federal appeals court in Manhattan has upheld R. Kelly’s 30-year prison sentence for his convictions on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
The 58-year-old singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was convicted in 2021 by a Brooklyn jury on nine counts and sentenced to 30 years in June 2022.
“We have considered all arguments presented by Kelly on appeal and concluded they are without merit,” the appeals court said in its decision. “For the reasons set forth, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.”
Kelly’s lawyer had argued that prosecutors improperly used a racketeering statute to go after the singer, but the appeals court rejected this claim.
Kelly is serving a total of 31 years on both convictions, including a 20-year prison sentence from a separate case in Chicago. In that case, Kelly was convicted of producing child sexual abuse images and enticement of minors for sex.
The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Kelly in the Chicago case, and a federal appeals court in Chicago previously rejected his appeal, ruling that he was correctly sentenced to 20 years on the child sex convictions.
Kelly’s convictions stem from allegations that he used his superstardom to subject young fans, some of whom were just children, to systematic sexual abuse.