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Accused of running a ‘system’ for the sexual exploitation of minors for years, R&B singer R. Kelly, who was branded a ‘predator’ in a six-week trial, was sentenced to 30 years on Wednesday from prison.
He didn’t say a word when the verdict was announced. The fallen American R&B singer R. Kelly, convicted in September 2021 in New York of having led for years a “system” of sexual exploitation of young people, including teenage girls, was sentenced on Wednesday to 30 years in prison.
This heavy sentence against the 55-year-old singer, known worldwide for his hit “I Believe I Can Fly”, was pronounced in federal court in Brooklyn, where his trial nine months ago had lifted the veil on sex crimes within the black community in the United States.
The US prosecutor’s office found him to be “an impudent, manipulative, controlling and coercive, showing no signs of remorse or respect for the law”.
Charges of nine women and two men
During the six weeks of trial last August and September, the fallen singer, whose real name Robert Kelly, was portrayed by the prosecution as “criminal, predatory”.
Nine women and two men had accused him of having sexually abused them, describing rape, forced drug taking, situations of imprisonment or even child pornography.
The man, who said he was raped when he was eight years old, was found guilty at the end of September 2021 of all the charges: extortion, sexual exploitation of a minor, kidnapping, trafficking, corruption and forced labor, over a period ranging from 1994 to 2018.
R. Kelly has always denied the facts. Throughout his trial, the former African-American R&B star had remained silent, and had shown no particular emotion at the statement of his guilt, contenting himself with lowering his head and closing his eyes. .
Already in custody and awaiting another federal trial in Chicago in August, R. Kelly was hoping for a maximum sentence in New York of 17 years in prison.
A #MeToo for black women
This lawsuit was considered a major step in the #MeToo movement: it was the first time that the majority of plaintiffs were black women and they accused a black artist.
For Kenyette Barnes, who coined the hashtag #MuteRKelly (“shut up R. Kelly”) in 2017 – the same year as the global #MeToo movement sparked by the downfall of all-powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein –, American justice made it possible for the first time to give an echo “to the blood, sweat and tears of black women” that American society until now did not want to see.
Long before sexual violence was a subject for the media and social networks in the United States, African-American women fought to alert the authorities and public opinion. But for part of society, “black women are neither likely to be raped nor credible”, denounced in September Kenyette Barnes.
Complicity of the environment
The trial had exposed the “system” of R. Kelly to attract very young women and sexually assault them, with the complicity of those around him, as in a kind of mafia enterprise, according to the prosecution. Many victims had recounted their meeting with their idol during concerts after which they were slipped a small piece of paper with the singer’s contact details. He would do something for their musical career, they were promised.
Instead, they were “indoctrinated” into R. Kelly’s “sordid” milieu, coerced into sex, and kept in that “system” by “coercive measures,” according to the prosecution.
Six women were the main accusers, some of whom claimed to have been drugged to be raped, kidnapped, forced to have abortions and infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
For lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents three of the six plaintiffs, the verdict against R. Kelly – the day after the 20 years in prison pronounced by the Manhattan court against the former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for sex trafficking of minors – must serve as an example for celebrities who use their “notoriety to prey on their fans”.
With AFP
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