CHICAGO — Disgraced musician R. Kelly was sentenced to one additional year in prison by an Illinois federal judge Thursday, nearly five months after he was convicted of sexual exploitation and enticement of a minor.
The sentence is to be served after the 30 years Kelly, 56, is serving after being found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking by a New York jury in 2021.
Kelly, whose legal name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was convicted last year on six counts of sexual exploitation and enticement of a minor in a case stemming from the complaints of women who said he lured them into sex acts while they were underage.
Federal prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber for the Northern District of Illinois to sentence Kelly to 25 years in prison, saying last week that the musician was “sadistic” and “a serial sexual predator” who “poses a serious danger to society.” Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean requested a sentence of around 10 years to be served alongside the New York sentence.
Leinenweber’s full sentence also includes 19 years to be served concurrent with the New York sentence.
The judge said he believed “sentencing should be sufficient but not greater than necessary,” adding that “everybody agrees that the nature of this offense is horrible, horrific.”
“No matter what I do Mr. Kelly is not going out the door in the next 10 years, in the next 20 years,” Leinenweber said. “One of the things we should bear in mind, he is 56 years old and as Ms. Bonjean points out, he has a life expectancy of not a helluva lot more.”
In court filings before Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors argued that a sentence that kept the musician imprisoned for life was “the only way to ensure Kelly does not reoffend.”
But Bonjean said he was already serving what was effectively a life sentence.
“Kelly would have to defy all statistical odds to make it out of prison alive,” she said in a court filing last week.
Kelly had faced 13 counts, including…
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