According to pitchfork.com artist R. Kelly has appealed his September 2021 conviction for alleged racketeering and sex trafficking. In the appeal Kelly‘s attorneys have claimed that four jurors have since admitted to having decided his guilt before the official verdict and at least two of them watched the Lifetime documentries Surviving R. Kelly.
The attorneys have also claimed that some of the minor girls were 18 years old when their sexual relationships started and that evidence related to previous relationships and testimony from former employees should not have been admissible. Kelly is seeking a reversal of his conviction or a new trial.
Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison last June after his September 2021 conviction in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. Earlier this year, Kelly’s alleged sexual abuse indictments in Illinois were dropped, with Illinois State’s Attorney Kim Foxx citing the “extensive sentences” handed down in the Kelly’s federal case in New York.
The artist was also sentenced to 20 years in prison in a separate federal child pornography case where he is set to serve most of that time to his 30-year sentence for sex trafficking in New York.
When reached by Pitchfork, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York offered no comment about the appeal. Pitchfork has also reached out to R. Kelly’s attorneys, Jennifer Bonjean and Ashley B. Cohen for comment.
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