A jury found R&B superstar R. Kelly guilty on all nine charges, including racketeering, after two days of deliberations in the singer’s sex trafficking trial. He was also convicted of criminal counts accusing him of violating the Mann Act, which makes it illegal to take anyone across state lines “for any immoral purpose.” Kelly faces 10 years to life in prison when he is sentenced next May.
Kelly and two others are also facing charges in in a separate federal case that’s pending in Chicago.
Officials on both sides of the case weighed in after the Kelly guilty verdict. The video above shows some of the attorneys’ responses.
Peter Fitzhugh, a Homeland Security investigations agent, said the verdict brought an end to Kelly’s “decade-long reign of terror over many vulnerable girls, boys and young women.”
“To the victims in this case, your voices were heard and justice was finally served,” Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis added.
Gloria Allred, a lawyer for some of Kelly’s accusers, said that of all the predators she’s gone after, including Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, “Mr. Kelly is the worst.”
“R. Kelly thought that he could get away with all of this, but he didn’t,” Allred said. “Despite the fact that he thought he could control all this, he was wrong.”
Kelly lawyer Deveraux Cannick said he was disappointed by the guilty verdict.
“I think I’m even more disappointed the government brought the case in the first place given all the inconsistencies,” Cannick said.
The guilty verdict and future sentencing caps off decades of legal issues for Kelly, which go all the way back to his illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15. In 2002, hew was arrested and accused of making a recording of himself sexually abusing and urinating on a 14-year-old girl.
Widespread public condemnation didn’t come until a widely watched docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” released in 2019. Prosecutors alleged the entourage of managers and aides who helped Kelly meet girls and keep them obedient amounted to a criminal enterprise.
During Kelly’s trial, several accusers testified and said Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.
