R. Kelly was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison for child pornography and enticement of minors for sex— but he will serve all but one of those years simultaneously with a 30-year sentence on racketeering and sex trafficking convictions. US District Judge Harry Leinenweber ordered that Kelly serve one year in prison following the racketeering sentence, which was imposed last year in New York, per the AP. The central question going into Thursday's sentencing in Kelly’s hometown of Chicago was whether Leinenweber would order the 56-year-old Grammy Award winner to serve the sentence simultaneously with the New York term.
Prosecutors had acknowledged that a lengthy term served after the New York sentence could have erased any chance of Kelly ever getting out of prison alive. It’s what they asked for, arguing his crimes against children and lack of remorse justified it. With Thursday's sentence, though, Kelly will serve no more than 31 years. That means he will be eligible for release at around age 80, providing him some hope of one day leaving prison alive. Leinenweber said at the outset of the hearing that he did not accept the government’s contention that Kelly used fear to woo underage girls for sex.
“The (government’s) whole theory of grooming, was sort of the opposite of fear of bodily harm,” the judge said. “It was the fear of lost love, lost affections (from Kelly). … It just doesn’t seem to me that it rises to the fear of bodily harm.” A calm Kelly spoke briefly at the start of the hearing, when the judge asked him if he had reviewed key presentencing documents for any inaccuracies. “Your honor, I have gone over it with my attorney,” Kelly said. Jurors in Chicago convicted Kelly last year on six of 13 counts: three counts of producing child porn and three of enticement of minors for sex. Prior to all this, Kelly had risen from poverty in Chicago to become one of the world’s biggest R&B stars.
(More
R. Kelly stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
