R Kelly

Earlier this week, R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in his federal sex trafficking and racketeering case. The sentence was handed down after he was found guilty of the charges in September of last year. Federal prosecutors sought a sentence “in excess of 25 years” as they deemed Kelly a danger to the public. While it appears that Kelly will not appeal his sentence, he is suing a Brooklyn jail for wrongfully placing him on suicide watch according to Consequence. Kelly claims that he has been subjected to “harmful and punitive” suicide watch conditions since his sentence was handed down on June 29.

The lawsuit says Kelly was put on suicide watch despite having no thoughts of suicide or harming himself in any way. Kelly believes he was put on suicide watch as a way to further punish him. Additionally, the lawsuit claims that Kelly was forced to wear a paper-like smock and denied the use of utensils to eat. He even compared his imprisonment to that of convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell. As a result, Kelly is seeking an “award of compensatory damages for all emotional distress, humiliation, pain and suffering, and other harm in an amount to be determined at trial.”

R. Kelly has been found guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering in a federal trial and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the judge in the case apparently wants to take more proactive steps to keep Kelly from backsliding upon his release. In addition to the long prison sentence, Judge Ann M. Donnelly has ordered R. Kelly to receive treatment for “an unspecified sexual disorder,” according to TMZ.

Additionally, after his release, Kelly must avoid all contact with minors unless the minor’s family member is present or in a therapeutic setting with a responsible adult chaperone. Finally, Kelly faces five years of supervised release at the end of his prison sentence. Prosecutors originally recommended more than 25 years of prison for the disgraced singer due to the threat they feel he presents, so Judge Donnelly has certainly gone above and beyond.

US attorneys likely believed that such a sentence is warranted because of both the evidence that came to light during the trial and the decades of alleged misconduct in which Kelly engaged according to witnesses. While his 1994 wedding to a then-17-year-old Aaliyah was widely-known, in the years since, Kelly was accused of child pornography and keeping women and girls in a “sex cult,” manipulating or outright abusing them to keep them compliant.

Kelly faces another trial on child porn charges in Chicago next month. He plans to appeal his conviction.

R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to Variety. The R&B star was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking in New York in September of 2021. Kelly was accused of recruiting women and teen girls (and at least one boy) in a sex-trafficking ring throughout the ’90s and 2000s, using his status, money, and connections to violate anti-sex trafficking laws and cover up his crimes. Federal prosecutors had previously recommended a sentence “in excess of 25 years,” believing him to be a continued danger to the public.

The earliest examples of Kelly’s crimes date as far back as 1994, when he illegally married the underaged Aaliyah, allegedly bribing public officials for phony documents saying she was of age. Meanwhile, he went on trial for child pornography in the early 2000s after a videotape emerged depicting Kelly urinating on a young teen girl. When the victim refused to testify, Kelly was acquitted but apparently never reformed, continuing his illegal activities throughout the following decade and a half.

His crimes were once again exposed by the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, in which many of his victims came forward to detail his abuse. With the uptick in campaigns such as “Mute R. Kelly,” his resources for dodging the authorities became scarce; he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. In addition to the federal case brought against him in New York, he faces a separate criminal trial in his home state, Illinois, where he is charged with ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse including more child porn charges. That trial is set to begin in August; Kelly has secured Bill Cosby’s former legal team ahead of the trial and is expected to appeal his New York case with the same team.