Sex-abuse charges against R. Kelly to be dropped by prosecutor

CHICAGO — A Chicago prosecutor said on Monday that she will drop sexual abuse charges against singer R. Kelly, following federal convictions in two courts that ensured the R&B star was lost. grace will be locked up for decades.

Cook County District Attorney Kim Foxx announced the decision a day before a court hearing regarding state charges accusing him of sexually abusing four people, three of whom were minors. Foxx said she will ask a judge to dismiss the charges at Tuesday’s hearing.

She admitted that the decision “could be disappointing” for the women who came forward to denounce Kelly’s crimes.

“Mr. Kelly is considering the possibility of never stepping out of prison again. … We believe justice has been served,” Foxx said.

Since Kelly was indicted in Cook County in 2019, federal juries in Chicago and New York have convicted him of a range of crimes, including child pornography, solicitation, racketeering and trafficking. sex trafficking in connection with allegations that he was a victim of women and girls.

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, is serving a 30-year prison sentence in the New York case and is awaiting sentencing on February 23 in Chicago federal court. He is appealing those convictions. Based on the New York conviction alone, the 56-year-old will not be eligible for release until he is around 80 years old.

Another case of sexual misconduct is pending in Hennepin County, Minnesota, where the Grammy winner faces solicitation charges. That case has also been put on hold while the federal cases go on. Minnesota prosecutors have not said whether they still intend to put Kelly on trial.

Prosecutors sometimes choose to conduct more trials out of concern that convictions elsewhere could be overturned during the appeals process. They see the opportunity to get more criminal records as insurance.

Known for his hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and sexually charged songs like “Bump n’ Grind,” Kelly sold millions of albums even after allegations of him abusing girls. young girls began to go viral in the 1990s. He defeated child pornography charges in Chicago in 2008, when a jury acquitted him.

Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct didn’t surface until the #MeToo reckoning and the release of the Lifetime documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly.”

After that series aired in early 2019, Foxx begged the accusers to come forward so prosecutors could pursue the charges. She announced the Cook County indictment months before the federal cases in New York and Chicago. Foxx’s office alleges that he was constantly looking for girls to have sex with, including one he met at her 16th birthday party and another who met the R&B star when he was on trial in 2008.

Federal prosecutors in New York told jurors at his 2021 trial that Kelly used an entourage of her managers and assistants to meet the girls and get them to be obedient, an activity that prosecutors consider a business crime.

Last year, prosecutors at the federal trial of Kelly in Chicago portrayed him as a master manipulator who used his fame and wealth to attract star fans. stars, some of them minors, to sexually abuse them and get rid of them. Four accusers testified.

While prosecutors in that case won results on six of the 13 charges brought against him in that case, the government lost control – that Kelly and his then-business manager he successfully rigged his 2008 child pornography trial.