NEW YORK :R. Kelly was convicted by a federal jury on Monday in his sex trafficking trial, where prosecutors accused the R&B singer of exploiting his stardom over a quarter-century to lure women and underage girls into his orbit for sex.
Deveraux Cannick, a lawyer for Kelly, told reporters outside the courtroom that the defense was"disappointed."The singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, is one of the most prominent people tried on sex charges during the #MeToo movement, which amplified accusations that had dogged him since the early 2000s.
Kelly had been charged with one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across state lines for prostitution. Trial testimony from government witnesses portrayed, often in graphic detail, an unseemly side to Kelly's 30-year music career, whose highlights include the 1996 Grammy-winning smash"I Believe I Can Fly."His alleged victims included the late singer Aaliyah, who Kelly briefly and illegally married in 1994 when she was 15. Aaliyah died in a 2001 plane crash.
One witness hoping to interview him for a radio station said he locked her up for at least two days without food or water before assaulting her. Gloria Allred, a lawyer for the woman who said she was locked up, alluded after the verdict to Cannick's closing argument where he invoked the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in urging jurors to show courage and acquit Kelly.
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