Robert Sylvester Kelly goes on trial Monday in Brooklyn, accused of running a criminal enterprise. The 54-year-old is better known, of course, as R&B singer R. Kelly, and he's accused among other things of systematically recruiting underage girls for sex over the course of his long career. What's unusual about the trial is that prosecutors are going after him through RICO—the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—which is typically used for Mafia dons or cartel leaders. Coverage:
- "They're trying to use a theory that typically applies to drug kingpins and cartels, and apply it to an ordinary band," a former Kelly attorney tells the Wall Street Journal. "It's not a sex case, it's a RICO case." The strategy is a "powerful weapon" because it will allow prosecutors to present what the Chicago Tribune describes as a "30,000-foot view" of Kelly's actions over decades. In fact, they'll be able to bring up allegations of uncharged crimes to demonstrate a pattern.
- This appears to be "uncharted territory" in regard to the 1970 law, per the Tribune. Prosecutors are essentially saying that Kelly's team of staffers constituted a criminal enterprise when they went about securing women for the singer and assisting him in related ways. Just as Mafia bosses shielded themselves from charges prior to RICO by making underlings do their dirty work, prosecutors say Kelly acted in much the same way. "Here, R. Kelly is the Godfather," says an expert in RICO law not involved with the case.
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