Live: R. Kelly Found Guilty of All Counts, Faces Life in Prison - The New York Times

Kelly’ documentary catalyzed the case against the singer.

Kelly’s trial could become music’s #MeToo moment.

Kelly on all nine charges against him, federal prosecutors had a simple message for the people who testified against him: Thank you.

Kelly date back to the early 1990s, but he evaded criminal prosecution for years, even as additional women came forward, and he was acquitted of child pornography in 2008 after a sex-tape came to light that the authorities said depicted him with a 15-year-old girl.

Kelly, Peter Fitzhugh, a special agent-in-charge at Homeland Security Investigations, said that the singer “made one critical error.”.

He added that he hoped the women and men who testified against the singer could now begin a “healing process” and restore the aspects of their lives that Mr.

Kelly had destroyed.

“It is my hope that through this trial and the toll that it has taken to get to this point, that we recognize that the movement is not at its fullest strength if everyone doesn’t have equal access to justice,” she said.

Kelly came from the singer himself.

He obsessively collected message slips and letters written by the women he interacted with — some of them underage — according to Ryan Chabot, the lead federal investigator in the case.

Kelly kept some of the evidence in FedEx folders, with labels like “Old Messages,” and other pieces — like a seven-page, front-and-back, handwritten letter from a woman who testified for three days early in the trial — in protective sleeves in a locked safe.

Kelly a “great man,” the woman wrote: “At the age of 17 I never had sex with Robert Kelly,” then proceeded to tick off a list of specific sex acts that she said she had not participated in with the R&B superstar.

Less than two years later, when the woman who had written the letter testified under a pseudonym, she said she had experienced coerced and recorded sexual encounters with the singer starting when she was 17.

Kelly’s personal collection in what appeared to be a yearslong attempt to build his defense even before the indictment in Brooklyn was unsealed.

They were all signed by accusers who were at the forefront of the case against the singer.

(She also testified as an expert at the trial of Keith Raniere, the Nxivm cult leader, who also relied on such collateral to intimidate women he was abusing.) Creating collateral keeps adolescents “captive,” she said, and creates a power dynamic she likened to “slowly sucking the oxygen out of the room and once you realize it, you can’t get out.”.

Kelly guilty of a decades-long scheme to recruit women and teenage girls for sex, Gloria Allred, a women’s rights attorney who represented several of the singer’s accusers, stood outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn and declared “justice has been done.”.

Allred has often represented women who have been victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault by powerful men — including in the case against the movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Kelly also knowingly spread herpes to his victims, she said.

Allred represented three of the six victims whose accounts were at the center of the case, as well as two other key witnesses in the trial.

Kelly’s trial in 2008, told me after his conviction that she was feeling a “bevy of emotions” as her voice broke over the phone.

Kelly supporters greeted Monday’s guilty verdict with outrage, citing unproven claims of a biased prosecution.

(Mr. Kelly, like many of the women and men who testified against him, is Black.).

Kelly’s defense lawyers while jeering federal prosecutors as they left the building.

Several of the supporters who have attended the New York trial flew from Illinois to follow the case.

Kelly’s defense lawyers.

Kelly” documentary on Lifetime was key to bringing awareness to the charges against the singer.

Kelly’s trial has taken place behind closed doors, away from the press and the public.

But even before his trial and conviction on Monday, the country had already heard the searing allegations of sexual, emotional and physical abuse leveled against the singer.

Kelly,” featured six hourlong episodes that included the stories of some of the women who said they were abused and manipulated by Mr.

Kelly, often when they were underage.

“It makes a difference when there are cameras involved, and when people can actually see these women telling their stories and feel it,” said Dream Hampton, an executive producer of the documentary.

Kelly was tried and acquitted in a criminal court in Chicago in a high-profile child pornography case.

The series was followed by criminal charges against the singer in Minnesota, Illinois and New York at the federal and state levels.

Kelly was convicted on all charges.

But the criminal trial of R.

Kelly was accused of engaging in sex acts with women as young as 13 or 14.

Kelly have been public for decades, publicized through reporting in The Chicago Sun-Times in the early 2000s and at a child pornography trial in 2008, where he was acquitted.

Kelly at the trial, was one of the earliest women to go public with her accusations in 2017.

Kelly required prosecutors to prove that the singer was the leader of an ongoing criminal enterprise involving multiple enablers, even though he was the sole defendant on trial.

Kelly’s lawyer said the defense team would consider appealing the verdict that could send his star client to prison for life.

Kelly on all charges.

Kelly of misconduct at the trial: “No one deserves what they experienced at his hands or the threats and harassment they faced in telling the truth about what happened to them.

Kelly’s first criminal trial that a sex tape at the center of the case showed Mr.

It was not enough for jurors, and the singer was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008?

Kelly was finally found guilty of sex-trafficking and racketeering charges on Monday, 20 years after she was first approached by a lawyer over the sex tape involving her niece.

“It’s just the fact that my niece and the other young women can now feel a sense of relief — he’s not able to do this to them any longer.”!

Kelly’s first trial, her sister — the mother of her niece — maintained that the teenager in the sex tape was not her daughter.

Kelly who allowed his behavior to continue were also to blame.

Her niece, now a woman in her 30s, has cooperated with federal prosecutors in Chicago in recent years in their own case against the singer.

Sparkle said she was not sure how she had been processing the singer’s current trial.

She added: “I wish and I pray that moving forward that Black women are listened to.”.

Kelly to be convicted: “We understand that justice moves at a glacial pace.”.

Kelly of running a criminal enterprise, prosecutors focused on his entourage — the managers, handlers and assorted employees who have helped him procure young women and avoid consequences.

Kelly.

He faces another federal case in Chicago — which could tack on decades to a prison term — along with state sex crime charges in Illinois and Minnesota.

Kelly listened with his head down, eyes cast down.

The guilty verdict came swiftly, particularly given the complexity of the case against R.

Kelly and the lengthy trial.

Kelly could spend decades in prison after a jury convicted him of racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex-trafficking law.

The government presented a sweeping case that featured 11 accusers, nine women and two men.

It gave jurors a low chance of reaching a full acquittal in the trial, legal experts said.

Kelly was acquitted of state child pornography charges in Chicago in 2008, jurors said that the absence of testimony from the girl at the center of the case spurred doubts.

Kelly, some legal experts viewed it as a potentially precarious approach: Would jurors believe that employees who promoted a music business also served as the henchmen of a criminal enterprise at the singer’s command.

Kelly had begun having sex with her in 2009, when she was 16.

Kelly’s trial had never spoken publicly about their accusations: Stephanie, who took the stand using only her first name.

Kelly occurred in the late 1990s, and Mr.

Kelly’s defense lawyers questioned why they did not come forward sooner.

Kelly guilty of all four counts related to her.

Kelly found guilty, the big question for the music industry is whether his music will now be removed from major digital platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

Kelly collaborators like Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Chance the Rapper — have been largely mum about the trial.

But as cases of high-profile men like the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein put a spotlight on the accusations of white women, Black women often said they felt left out of the conversation.

Kelly’s case and conviction offered the sense that the movement could serve them, too, giving them a chance to hold men accountable.

“This is culmination of the movement of so many women who having being trying so long to have their voices heard,” said Oronike Odeleye, the co-founder of the #MuteRKelly campaign.

And we’re at a moment where Black women are no longer accepting that as the price of being Black and female in America.”.

Burke, some observers worried that Black women had been left out of the story and noted that Ms.

Kelly’s accusers holds a deep significance, several experts say, particularly because Black women and girls have historically seen their accusations dismissed more often than others.

“When you have girls who aren’t famous, they’re not stars in their own right — and they’re Black — it becomes so easy for people to overlook their suffering and to cast it aside so the status quo can be preserved,” said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor of law at Northwestern University and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan.

Kelly’s trial carried a distinct resonance for a confluence of a reasons, she said: The accusers at the heart of the case looked like her, and she had herself endured sexual abuse in childhood.

“To be honest, this was the first case that was predominantly Black girls, Black women, Black boys — and so it was intriguing to me to see if they would get justice,” said Ms.

Kelly’s first acquittal on child pornography charges in 2008 allowed for his career to keep flourishing in the years that followed.

Kelly sat motionless in the courtroom as he was found guilty of all nine counts of the racketeering and sex-trafficking charges against him.

Relatively brief deliberations in a complex case can like this often indicate that the jury was fairly united in reaction to the trial.

Kelly, the multiplatinum R&B artist whose musical legacy became intertwined with dozens of accusations of sexual abuse, was found guilty on Monday of serving as the ringleader of a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex.

His six-week trial exposed a harrowing system of trauma and abuse, commanded by the singer and enabled by his associates.

Kelly’s case represented a critical test of the inclusivity of the Me Too movement, which seeks to hold influential and powerful men accountable for sexual misbehavior.

Never before in a high-profile Me Too-era trial had the large majority of the accusers been Black women.

She thanked the 11 men and women who accused him of misconduct at the trial.

Kelly’s lawyers said his defense team would consider an appeal.

The trial marked a significant milestone, as women and men took the stand against the singer to accuse Mr.

On Monday, several women who said Mr.

Kelly had abused them praised his conviction as a decades-in-the-making rebuke of the singer and a meaningful validation of the stories of his victims.

Kelly at a criminal trial when she took the stand last month.

And we’re at a moment where Black women are no longer accepting that as the price of being Black and female in America.”.

Federal prosecutors chronicled a dark journey in the career of the singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.

Kelly became a criminal mastermind who used a universe of enablers and sycophants in his orbit to ensnare women, girls and boys.

The prosecution called 45 witnesses during the trial, but the criminal charges against the singer hinged on accusations related to six women, five of whom testified (the sixth, the singer Aaliyah, died in a plane crash in 2001).

Kelly’s only other criminal trial, in 2008, stood in mind for many observers.

Kelly when he was cleared of wrongdoing in his Chicago trial.

Kelly also faces a federal trial in Chicago on child pornography and obstruction charges, and additional state sex crime charges in Illinois and Minneapolis.

Kelly’s defense team said that the racketeering charge itself was flawed and unfounded, arguing that he had run nothing more than a successful music business.

Kelly declined to testify in his own defense.

attorney, said at the end of the trial.

The seven men and five women of the jury, whose ages and races were unclear throughout the trial, ultimately sided with their position.

Kelly’s employees shared about his treatment of women and several video and audio recordings, some of which appeared to depict the singer violently assaulting a woman and threatening her life.

They said that when the rules were broken, the singer doled out harsh and startling punishments, from skin-tearing spankings to forcing one woman to smear feces on her face and eat it.

Kelly has been at the center of accusations that he sexually abused underage girls and young women.

Kelly has faced criminal charges in Illinois, Minnesota and New York, where he was found guilty on Monday of all counts, has a movement to boycott his songs, known as the #MuteRKelly campaign, taken hold.

Kelly was indicted on child pornography charges after a video surfaced that authorities said showed the singer having sex with a teenage girl.

Kelly,” a documentary with firsthand accounts from women who said he had sexually abused them.

Kelly’s trial is best known for blocking former President Donald J

Kelly’s trial, including a witness who tried to wriggle out of testifying despite a court order granting him immunity

Kelly’s defense lawyers dwelled on the topic of “twerking,” Judge Donnelly reprimanded him in a sidebar away from jurors

Kelly’s six-week trial, but the foundation of the racketeering and sex trafficking case against him was based on his encounters with six women

Kelly, who was 27 at the time, illegally married the singer Aaliyah, 15, in a 10-minute ceremony in a Sheraton hotel room in the Chicago area in 1994

Kelly at a Nike store in 1999, when she was 17, to ask him for an audition for a friend, an aspiring singer

Pace is one of several women who said the singer knowingly gave her herpes

Kelly, who faces a sprawling racketeering case and eight violations of the Mann Act, a law banning interstate sex trafficking

One of the jurors, a longtime flight attendant, said he believed “trial by the media is worse than a trial by jury.” The man told the judge that he has a friend in the family of Bill Cosby, whose 2018 conviction for sexual assault was recently overturned, but that he did not question the jury’s verdict