R. Kelly Convicted on 6 Child Sex Abuse and Child Pornography Counts in Chicago
Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was convicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday of six counts of child pornography and child sex abuse charges, the Associated Press reported.
The Chicago jury received the case Tuesday evening and deliberated for a total of 11 hours.
Kelly, 55, was acquitted on a fourth pornography count and an obstruction charge relating to his 2008 child pornography trial. He was also found not guilty on three charges of conspiring to receive child pornography and two additional counts of enticement.
Prosecutors said Kelly used his fame and wealth to manipulate and exploit young fans, some of them minors.
Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, associates of Kelly’s and co-defendants, were both acquitted, on counts of conspiring to rig Kelly’s 2008 trial, and receiving child pornography, respectively. Prosecutors said they tried to help Kelly recover a gym bag full of his home-made pornographic videos, including some with minors, offering a $1 million reward for the recovery of the incriminating evidence.
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Kelly was convicted in New York of racketeering and sex trafficking, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He now faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years for the child pornography charge in Illinois.
Kelly’s defense called only a few witnesses over four days. Four accusers took the stand, all referred to as pseudonyms. A fifth accuser did not take the stand.
Kelly’s 2008 trial centered on a single video of the singer and a girl who was 14 at the time it was made. Now 37, the woman testified last month in Kelly’s Chicago trial that she lied to a grand jury in 2002, saying it wasn’t her because she cared for Kelly and wanted to protect him.
It was the first time the woman stated publicly that she was the girl in the video; some jurors said in 2008 that they had to acquit Kelly with no victim’s testimony. She said from the stand this month that she and Kelly had sex “uncountable times … hundreds” before she turned 18.
