CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago prosecutor said Monday she will drop sex abuse charges against the singer R Kelly, The federal convictions in two courts ensured that the disgraced R&B star would be behind bars for decades.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced the decision a day before a court hearing on state charges accusing him of sexually abusing four people, three of whom were minors.
because kelly is Indicted in Cook County in 2019, Federal juries in Chicago and New York have convicted him of a string of crimes, including child pornography, solicitation, racketeering and sex trafficking in connection with allegations that he victimized women and girls.
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, is serving 30 years in prison In the case of New York and waiting for sentencing Feb. 23 in Chicago federal court. He is appealing those convictions. Based solely on the New York judgment, the 56-year-old would not be eligible for release until he was in his mid-80s.
Another case of sexual misconduct is TBD in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Where Grammy winners face solicitation fees. That case was also on hold while the federal case was concluded. Prosecutors in Minnesota have not said whether they still intend to bring Kelly to trial.
Prosecutors have sometimes opted to go ahead with more trials for fear that convictions elsewhere might be overturned during appeals. They view the chance of additional convictions as insurance.
Known for his smash hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and sex-filled songs like “Bump and Grind,” Kelly sold even after allegations of his abuse of young girls began to circulate publicly in the 1990s. millions of albums. He defeated child pornography charges in Chicago in 2008 when a jury acquitted him.
After the series aired in early 2019, Fox implored the plaintiffs to come forward so prosecutors could file a case. Her indictment against Cook County was announced months before federal cases in New York and Chicago. Foxx’s office said he sought out girls for sex on multiple occasions, including one he met at a 16th birthday party and another he met the R&B star when he was on trial in 2008.
Federal prosecutors in New York told jurors at the 2021 trial that Kelly used his entourage of managers and assistants to meet and subdue the girls, an operation prosecutors said constituted a criminal enterprise.
Prosecutors in the federal trial of Kelly in Chicago last year painted him as a master manipulator who used his fame and fortune to attract star-struck fans, some of them minors, sexually abuse them and then dump them.Four plaintiffs testify .
While prosecutors in that case were convicted on six of the 13 counts against him, the government lost the key count — Kelly and his then-business manager successfully rigging his 2008 child pornography trial.
