US prosecutors push to lock up R&B star R Kelly for 25 more years
Barnini Chakraborty
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Federal prosecutors asked a Chicago judge on Thursday to sentence singer R. Kelly to an additional 25 years in prison for his child pornography conviction last year, which would effectively keep the troubled crooner locked up for life.
Prosecutors called Kelly’s behavior “sadistic” and described him as “a serial sexual predator” with no remorse for his actions in a 37-page memo filed ahead of Kelly’s sentencing by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber next week. Kelly is already serving 30 years for a conviction in New York. The government asked that his Chicago sentence be tacked on consecutively, which, if granted, would mean the 56-year-old wouldn’t be eligible for release until he was around 100.
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“The only way to ensure Kelly does not reoffend is to impose a sentence that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life,” prosecutors said in their filing.
Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, is pushing for a 10-year sentence and argued that her client was already serving what amounted to a life sentence.
“Kelly would have to defy all statistical odds to make it out of prison alive,” she wrote in a filing, citing data that the average life expectancy of an inmate is in the mid-60s.
Bonjean, who has represented a number of different men accused of sexual misconduct, including Bill Cosby, also argued that Kelly was being unfairly treated because he is a black man and that white rock stars have gotten away with bad and illegal behavior for decades.
“None have been prosecuted and none will die in prison,” she wrote of the white entertainers.
Kelly was found guilty on six of 13 counts at his Chicago trial last year. He was acquitted on charges that he and his then-business manager Derrel McDavid rigged his state child pornography trial in 2008. A jury acquitted him in that case. In 1997, Kelly was sued by a woman who claimed the R&B superstar had sexually harassed and battered her as a minor. Kelly settled the lawsuit.
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Kelly was sentenced in New York last year on charges that included sexual exploitation of a child, racketeering, bribery, and sex trafficking.