A federal jury has convicted R Kelly of several child pornography and sex abuse charges in his hometown of Chicago, delivering another legal blow to a singer who used to be one of the biggest R&B stars in the world.
Kelly — whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly — was found guilty on six out of 13 counts in the federal trial.
The 55-year-old was found guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of child enticement.
But the jury acquitted him on a fourth pornography count as well as a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge, relating to accusations he tried to rig a state child pornography trial in 2008.
He was found not guilty on all three counts of conspiring to receive child pornography and two further enticement charges.
His two co-defendants were found not guilty on all charges.
Jurors, who deliberated for 11 hours over two days, wrote several questions to the judge on Wednesday, at least one indicating the panellists were grappling with some of the case’s legal complexities.
One asked if they had to find Kelly both enticed and coerced minors, or that he either enticed or coerced them. Over objections from Kelly’s lawyer, the judge said they only need to find one.
Kelly has already been convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in New York and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
He also faces various state charges in Illinois and Minnesota.
In Chicago, a conviction of just one count of child pornography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, while receipt of child pornography carries a mandatory minimum of five years.
Judges can order that defendants sentenced earlier in separate cases serve their new sentence simultaneously with or only after the first term is fully served. Federal inmates must serve at least 85 per cent of their sentences.
A master manipulator
At trial, prosecutors sought to paint a picture of Kelly as a master manipulator who used his fame and wealth to reel in star-stuck fans, some of them minors, to be sexually abused and then discarded.
During the five-week trial, several women took the stand and told jurors that Kelly sexually abused them when they were minors.
The jury also saw a video of Kelly molesting his goddaughter, who testified that the abuse began in the 1990s when she was a teenager.
Kelly and both his codefendants, Milton Brown and Derrel McDavid, were acquitted on charges that they conspired to receive child pornography.
Jurors also acquitted Mr McDavid, a longtime Kelly business manager, on charges of trying to bribe and threaten witnesses in the 2008 Illinois case in which Kelly was found not guilty on 14 counts of child pornography.
Mr McDavid, who was on the stand for three days, may have damaged Kelly’s hopes for acquittal by saying that he had come to doubt that Kelly was truthful when he denied abusing anyone, after hearing the superstar’s accusers testify.
In her closing rebuttal, prosecutor Jeannice Appenteng cited testimony that Kelly’s inner circle increasingly focused on doing what Kelly wanted as his fame boomed in the mid 1990s.
"And ladies and gentlemen, what R Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls," she said.
Some dozen die-hard Kelly fans regularly attended the trial.
Kelly is among the most prominent people convicted of sexual misbehaviour during the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and abuse in recent years.
AP/Reuters
