The singer was sentenced to 20 years but will serve 19 concurrently in New York.
February 23, 2023, 1:04 PM
A federal judge in Chicago sentenced singer R. Kelly to 20 years in prison for his child pornography and enticement of minors for sex convictions Thursday.
However, the sentencing only adds one more year to his prison time as Kelly will serve 19 years concurrently with his New York prison sentence, according to Chicago ABC station WLS. He would then be required to serve one year in the Chicago case.
Kelly is already serving a 30-year prison sentence after he was convicted in a New York federal court last year of racketeering and violating the Mann Act, a sex trafficking law, including having sex with underage girls.
Kelly could have could faced between 10 to 90 years in prison for the crimes he was charged with in Chicago.
Prosecutors had recommended Kelly serve 25 years in prison, consecutively to his New York sentence, calling him a sexual predator who used his fame and wealth to abuse his victims, and has shown no remorse, according to WLS.
Kelly's lawyer asked for a sentence of 10 years to be served concurrently with his New York sentence, saying Kelly being abused as a child justified leniency, according to WLS.
R. Kelly, center, leaves the Daley Center after a hearing in his child support case May 8, 2019, in Chicago.
Matt Marton/AP, FILE
The disgraced 55-year-old singer was found guilty in September in what was his second federal trial.
Kelly faced multiple child pornography, sex abuse and obstruction charges involving an earlier investigation that ended with his acquittal in a 2008 state child pornography trial in his hometown of Chicago.
Prosecutors alleged that in the late 1990s, Kelly engaged in sex acts with five victims while they were all under the age of 18 and created explicit videos with four of them.
A jury found Kelly guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticing a minor. He was acquitted of a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge accusing him of fixing the 2008 trial.
The immensely successful recording artist has won three Grammy Awards and sold tens of millions of records, but his career was always consistently dogged and eventually ended by accusations of sexual impropriety dating back 30 years.
