R&B singer R Kelly was convicted on six out of 13 counts in a trial related to images of child abuse.
The singer was charged in his hometown of Chicago on 13 charges, including produce images of child abuseenticing minors for sex and rigging her 2008 child sexual abuse trial.
Kelly and Derrel McDavid, the singer’s former business manager, were charged with fixing Kelly’s 2008 trial on child pornography charges by intimidating and paying witnesses.
The singer, full name Robert Sylvester Kelly, was found guilty of inducing underage girls to have sex with him, but not guilty of obstructing justice charges.
The jury began deliberating on Tuesday after hearing weeks of testimony and seeing parts of an explicit video that one of Kelly’s accusers Jane said depicts her at age 14 with the R&B singer.
Kelly, known for his smash hit I Believe I Can Fly and sex-drenched songs like Bump N ‘Grind, has sold millions of albums even after allegations of abuse began to circulate in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage emerged after the #MeToo showdown and 2019 Surviving R. Kelly docuseries.
Kelly, 55, has it already been convicted in New York of racketeering and sex trafficking and it was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in June.
Based on this alone, he will not be eligible for release until the age of around 80, but these new sentences could add years to his sentence.
The Chicago trial was in many ways a second attempt to the 2008 trial, with a landmark video for both of them.
Two other trials are pending; one in Minnesota and another in the Chicago State Court.
Read more:
Everyone knew about the allegations, so why did it take 30 years to get justice?
R Kelly comes to her previous trial in 2019
“The cockroaches in a bowl of soup”
Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean told the court Tuesday that key government witnesses were admitted as liars who testified with immunity to make sure they couldn’t be charged.
Sometimes sounding indignant and raising her voice, Mrs. Bonjean compared their testimony and other evidence to a cockroach and the government case to a bowl of soup.
If a beetle falls into the soup, it would say, “Don’t take the beetle out and eat the rest of the soup. Throw out the whole soup.”
He said of the prosecution case: “There are too many cockroaches.”
