Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was found guilty today (Sept. 13) in Chicago on six of the 13 counts he faced in a five-week federal trial stemming from his lengthy history of lewd accusations.
The jury found Kelly guilty on three charges each for sexual exploitation and enticement of a minor, while acquitting him on all of the charges he was facing in relation to conspiring to obstruct justice involving his previous trial. Prosecutors said Kelly offered up to $1 million to recover stolen child pornography videos he made and then carried from place to place in a gym bag.
Kelly’s two co-defendants, former business manager Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, were both found not guilty on all charges.
The news comes as the latest blow to the 55-year-old singer, who is already serving a 30-year sentence after being found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking charges in a separate June trial in New York.
Legal scrutiny of his activities was revived following the 2019 docu-series Surviving R. Kelly, which detailed numerous sexual abuse accusations from several victims who came forward to tell their stories for the first time.
Kelly, who was illegally married to a then-15-year-old Aaliyah in 1994, had dodged accusations of having sex with underage girls for decades. In 2002, he was indicted in Chicago on child pornography charges, but was acquitted at trial in 2008. A 2017 Buzzfeed report prompted the latest round of criminal charges, as it described how Kelly recruited young women into his orbit, banned them from communicating with their family and friends, controlled what they wore and ate and recorded sexual encounters with them.
