US singer R. Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for using his status to run a scheme to sexually abuse children and women.
R&B artist, 55, of racketeering and sex trafficking crimes.
Lawyers for the singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, say he will appeal.
Survivors on Wednesday said he had degraded and humiliated them.
Ahead of his sentencing, a handful of women took the stand to confront Kelly over his decades-long-abuses.
A woman identified only as Angela called the singer a Pied Piper who “grew in wickedness” with every new victim, while others who were not named testified he had broken their spirits.
“I literally wished I would die because of how you made me feel,” said one.
Dressed in prison khakis and dark glasses, Kelly declined to make a statement of his own.
US District Judge Ann Donnelly said the celebrity had used sex as a weapon, forcing his victims to do unspeakable things and saddling them with incurable diseases.
“You taught them that love is enslavement and violence,” she said.
The court heard how Kelly – known for hit songs like I Believe I Can Fly and Ignition – used his celebrity status and influence to lure women and children into sexual abuse over two decades.
Watch the video blow ;
Jurors at his six-week trial in Brooklyn heard how he trafficked women between different US states, assisted by managers, security guards and other members of his entourage.
The court also heard how Kelly had illegally obtained paperwork to marry singer Aaliyah when she was 15 in 1994, seven years before the singer died in a plane crash.
The certificate, leaked at the time, listed Aaliyah’s age as 18. The marriage was annulled months later.
Federal prosecutors had recommended that Kelly be sentenced to more than 25 years in prison, given the seriousness of his crimes and “the need to protect the public from further crimes”.
But his lawyers called for a sentence of 10 years – the mandatory minimum for his conviction – or less.
They portrayed Kelly as growing up poor in a household rife with domestic violence and suffering sexual abuse from a young age.
Kelly has been in custody since he was indicted by federal prosecutors in New York and Chicago in July 2019.
His three years behind bars have been eventful, including a beating from a fellow inmate in 2020 and a bout with Covid-19 earlier this year.
The singer faces further legal action in August, when he goes on trial again, this time in Chicago on child sex images and obstruction charges.
He is also due to face sex abuse charges in courts in Illinois and Minnesota.
Background Research Of R.Kelly’s charges and interviews.
In February, celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti said he had obtained a video showing Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl. Weeks later, Kelly was charged in Chicago with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He pleaded not guilty and gave a histrionic Tv interview .
Watch the video below :
Prosecutors later filed an additional 11 charges of sexual assault and abuse against a minor aged between 13 and 16.
The charging documents described sex and oral sex with a minor “by the use of force or threat of force”. The accuser was thought to be one of the women featured in Surviving R. Kelly, who said she met the singer during a previous trial.
Kelly was hit with two separate indictments in Illinois and Brooklyn.
Combined, the allegations depicted an organised effort from the singer and his associates to recruit and transport underage girls over state lines for illegal sexual purposes, including the production of child sex abuse images, as well as conspiracy to obstruct justice by destroying evidence and bribing or threatening witnesses.
