Former R&B singer R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 YEARS in prison, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Kelly was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking charges and federal racketeering as a result of using his fame to groom the victims he sexually abused over the last few decades.

Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Kelly to over 25 years behind bars. Kelly’s defense attorneys asked for 10 or fewer, saying the prosecutors’ request was “equivalent to a life sentence.”

Survivors of Kelly’s abuse held hands and prayed as US District Court Judge Ann Donnelly began reading his sentence. Kelly – who wore a tan prison uniform, dark-rimmed glasses and a black mask at the hearing in federal court in Brooklyn – showed no emotion.

“You left in your wake a trail of broken lives,” Donnelly told Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.


Kelly’s attorneys said he was repeatedly sexually abused by a family member and a landlord.

Donnelly said she considered R. Kelly’s own traumatic childhood when determining an appropriate sentence.

“It may explain, at least in part, what led to your behavior,” said the judge. “It most surely is not an excuse.”

Jovante Cunningham, a former backup singer for Kelly, praised the sentence.

“I started this journey 30 years ago,” Cunningham said outside the court after the hearing. “There wasn’t a day in my life up until this moment that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for Black and brown girls. I stand here very proud of my judicial system, very proud of my fellow survivors and very pleased with the outcome.”

A jury convicted Kelly last September on nine counts, including one charge of racketeering and eight counts of violations of the Mann Act, a sex trafficking law. Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York accused Kelly of using his status as a celebrity and a “network of people at his disposal to target girls, boys and young women for his own sexual gratification.”

The federal trial took place over the course of 5 weeks in Brooklyn and included various testimonies from witnesses who said they were sexually and physically abused by Kelly.

R. Kelly secretly married 15-year-old Aaliyah at Sheraton Gateway Suites in Rosemont, Illinois on July 31, 1994

The court also heard from people involved with orchestrating the disgraced R&B singer’s 1994 marriage to the late singer Aaliyah when she was just 15 years old and he was an adult after she believed she’d gotten pregnant.

“No one can undo the harm that has been done to these victims…it’s time for Mr. Kelly to be accountable,” said the attorney who represented the 3 victims who testified.

Add comment