R. Kelly’s sex trafficking conviction upheld

In this Friday, March 22, 2019 photo, R. Kelly appears for a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago, Illinois. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune via AP)

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 U.S. 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.

Victims portrayed repression

Wednesday’s decision came as jailed rapper and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs awaits his scheduled May 5 trial in Manhattan federal court on sex trafficking charges.

Dozens of women and men have filed civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct. Combs has pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence.

Kelly’s trial followed two decades of misconduct accusations, which he had repeatedly denied.

Jurors heard testimony from 45 government witnesses, including several victims, that portrayed in often graphic detail the repression that prosecutors said Kelly and his entourage imposed.

This included requirements that victims refer to Kelly as “Daddy,” get permission to eat or use the bathroom, and write “apology letters” that purported to absolve him of blame.

The appeal included arguments by Kelly that prosecutors failed to prove he intended to expose victims to herpes by concealing his diagnosis before having unprotected sex.

Kelly also argued that four jurors had known too much about the case and were biased against him.

The case is separate from Kelly’s September 2022 conviction by a Chicago jury of child sex crimes.

He was sentenced there to 20 years in prison, but the judge added just one year to Kelly’s imprisonment, with the other 19 years overlapping the 30-year sentence.

In October, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kelly’s appeal from the Chicago conviction.

Kelly is at the Butner, North Carolina medium-security prison that once housed late Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. He is eligible for release in December 2045, at age 78.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)