By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK – A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld R. Kelly’s sex trafficking and racketeering conviction, saying extensive evidence supported keeping the former R&B superstar behind bars for decades.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Kelly’s claims that federal prosecutors failed to prove he led a racketeering scheme where he recruited women and underage girls for sex and then violated several victims.
Circuit Judge Denny Chin said prosecutors offered “extensive evidence showing how Kelly ensnared young girls and women into his orbit, endeavored to control their lives, and secured their compliance with his personal and sexual demands through verbal and physical abuse, threats of blackmail, and humiliation.”
Writing for a three-judge panel, Chin also said jurors could conclude that Kelly, 58, intended to convince victims they would be harmed if they failed to honor his sexual demands.
Kelly’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean said her client may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court because the decision improperly expanded the reach of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.
The decision “gives the government limitless discretion to apply the RICO statute to situations absurdly remote from the statute’s intent,” Bonjean said. “The statute was intended to punish organized crime, not individual conduct.”
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment.
Kelly is serving a 30-year prison sentence after a Brooklyn, New York jury convicted him in September 2021 of one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which forbids transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
His case became among the most prominent #MeToo-era prosecutions.
Kelly was previously perhaps best known for his 1996 Grammy-winning hit “I Believe I Can Fly.” His full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly. — Reuters
