Abuse Trial: Jury finds US musician R. Kelly guilty

In the abuse trial against R&B star R. Kelly, the jury found the musician guilty of all charges. The 54-year-old was charged with, among other things, sexual exploitation of minors and kidnapping. He now faces a long sentence.

The US musician R. Kelly has been found guilty of all nine counts in a sexual abuse trial. The jury of seven men and five women had been deliberating since Friday.

Kelly is accused of abusing and exploiting women, girls and boys. He has dismissed the charges. Now the musician, who has been in prison since his arrest in summer 2019, faces a prison sentence of ten years to life.

A process that has received a lot of attention worldwide

The process is – after cases like those of film producer Harvey Weinstein and comedian Bill Cosby – the next in the USA and worldwide much noticed legal reappraisal of the #MeToo era. For around six weeks, the public prosecutor and defense at the court in Brooklyn, New York, in front of Judge Ann Donnelly, had detailed the allegations of abuse against Kelly from several decades, disassembled them and presented their arguments.

Dozens of witnesses had spoken and hundreds of pieces of evidence had been sighted.

Proceedings followed in the courtroom

Kelly was a sex offender, had argued attorney Elizabeth Geddes for the prosecution and demanded his conviction. Kelly’s lawyer Deveraux Cannick argued for the defense that the musician was himself a victim – of made-up stories and embellished narratives about abuse. Kelly did not testify herself, but followed the trial in the courtroom.

The first allegations against the musician, born in Chicago in 1967 as Robert Sylvester Kelly, became known about 25 years ago. In 2008 he was on trial for possession of pictures of serious child sexual abuse – and was acquitted. There are additional charges against Kelly in Illinois and Minnesota.