R Kelly’s lawyers are asking the US Supreme Court to overturn his conviction on charges of possession of child pornography and solicitation of a child for sex.
The 57-year-old singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Chicago in February 2023 on charges of child pornography and solicitation of a child for sex.
In June 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. However, 19 years of the two sentences will be served concurrently, and he is expected to be released in 2045.
On Thursday, July 25, Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, claimed in a petition obtained by People that Kelly’s alleged actions occurred decades ago and that last year’s allegations are claimed to be past the statute of limitations.
In 2020, Kelly was first charged with possessing child pornography and having sex with underage girls dating back to the mid-to-late 1990s. His team argued the statute of limitations had expired.
However, prosecutors responded to that argument by citing the PROTECT ACT — a 2003 law that states that statutes of limitations do not apply to sex crimes against children.
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But in Bonjean’s petition, she argued that even though Kelly served time for crimes from the 1990s, the statute of limitations does not apply to him because the PROTECT ACT was enacted in the early 2000s. She wrote that Congress did not explicitly include a clause that the law also applies to crimes that occurred before 2003.
“Because Congress did not expressly state that the PROTECT Act should apply retroactively and even rejected a version of the law that included a retroactive provision, the PROTECT Act does not extend the statute of limitations and Defendants are found guilty of crimes that have already been statute of limitations,” the petition states.
Although Kelly’s team has appealed, the Supreme Court does not have to hear Kelly’s case.
The latest appeal also follows an ongoing appeal of his 2021 New York conviction. The first appeal argued that Kelly was unfairly charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for leading a group of people who recruited women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity and produce child pornography. (People/Z-3)
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