A federal jury on Wednesday convicted R. Kelly of multiple counts of child pornography and sexual abuse in his hometown of Chicago, dealing yet another legal blow to a singer who was one of the biggest R&B stars in the world. Kelly, 55, was found guilty of three counts of child pornography and three counts of child enticement. But the jury acquitted him of a fourth count of pornography as well as of conspiracy to obstruct justice by accusing him of fixing his state child pornography trial in 2008. He was found not guilty of all three counts of conspiracy to receive child pornography and two more counts of misleading fees . His two co-defendants were found not guilty of all charges. Jurors wrote several questions to the judge Wednesday, at least one suggesting the panelists were grappling with some of the legal complexities of the case. Someone asked if they should find Kelly both lured and coerced minors, or that she either lured or coerced them. Over the objections of Kelly’s lawyer, the judge said they just need to find one. At trial, prosecutors tried to paint a picture of Kelly as a manipulator who used his fame and wealth to frame fans who were attached to the stars, some of them minors, for sexual abuse and then dumped them. Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, was desperate to retrieve child pornography videos she made and was packing a gym bag, witnesses said. They said he offered up to $1 million to recover the lost videos before his 2008 trial, knowing they would put him in legal jeopardy. The conspiracy to cover up his abuse lasted from 2000 to 2020, prosecutors said. Kelly’s associates, Derrell McDavid and Milton Brown, were co-defendants in the Chicago trial. Jurors acquitted McDavid, Kelly’s longtime manager, who was charged with conspiring with Kelly to tamper with the trial in 2008. Brown, Kelly’s longtime partner, was acquitted of receiving child pornography. Kelly faced 13 counts. Conviction of a single count of child pornography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, while receiving child pornography carries a mandatory minimum of five years. Judges can order defendants previously convicted in separate cases to serve their new sentences concurrently or only after the first term is served in full. Federal prisoners must serve at least 85% of their sentence. During closing arguments Tuesday, Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, likened the government’s testimony and evidence to a cockroach and her case to a bowl of soup. If a cockroach gets into soup, he said, “you don’t just take the cockroach out and eat the rest of the soup. You’re throwing away all the soup,” jurors were told. “There are too many cockroaches,” he said of the prosecution’s case. The three defendants called only a few witnesses over four days. Co-defendant McDavid, who has been on the stand for three days, may have hurt Kelly’s hopes of an acquittal by saying he now doubts Kelly was being truthful when she denied abusing anyone after hearing the superstar’s accusers testify. In her closing rebuttal, prosecutor Jeannice Appenteng cited testimony that Kelly’s inner circle became increasingly focused on doing what Kelly wanted as his reputation blossomed in the mid-1990s. “And ladies and gentlemen, what R. Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls,” he said. Four of Kelly’s accusers testified, all referred to by pseudonyms or their first names: Jane, Nia, Pauline and Tracy. Some cried when they described the abuse, but otherwise spoke calmly and confidently. A fifth accuser, Brittany, did not testify. Seated nearby in a suit and face mask, Kelly often averted his eyes and looked down as his accusers spoke. Several dozen of Kelly’s loyal fans regularly watched the trial. On at least one occasion during a break, several people made heart signs at Kelly. He returned the smile. Jane, 37, was the government’s lead and instrumental in the fixing charge, which accused Kelly of using threats and payments to get her to lie to a grand jury before his 2008 trial and ensure that she and her parents will not testify. A single video, which prosecutors said shows Kelly abusing a girl about 14 years old, was the focus of that trial. On the witness stand over two days in late August, Jane paused, pulled on a necklace and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue when she said publicly for the first time that the girl in the video was 14 and the man was Kelly, who would around 30. Some jurors in the 2008 trial said they should have acquitted Kelly because the girl in the video did not testify. At the federal trial in Chicago, Jane said she lied to a state grand jury in 2002 when she said she wasn’t the one in the video, saying part of the reason she lied was that she cared about Kelly and didn’t want to take him. in trouble. Jane told jurors she was 15 when they first had sex. Asked how many times they had sex before she turned 18, she quietly replied: “Countless times. … Hundreds.” Jane, who was part of a teenage singing group, first met Kelly in the late 1990s when she was in high school. She had visited Kelly’s Chicago recording studio with her aunt, a professional singer. Shortly after that meeting, Jane told her parents that Kelly was going to be her godfather. Jane testified that when her parents confronted Kelly in the early 2000s, he fell to his knees and begged for their forgiveness. She said she begged her parents not to take action against Kelly because she loved him. Defense attorneys suggested that a desire for money and fame prompted some government witnesses to implicate Kelly, and they accused several people of trying to extort him. They also suggested that at least one of his accusers was 17 — the age of consent in Illinois — when Kelly began pursuing her for sex. Bonjean pleaded with jurors not to accept the prosecution’s portrayal of her client as a “monster,” saying Kelly was forced to rely on others because of mental challenges and that she was sometimes delusional. “Mr. Kelly can be a victim too,” she said in her opening statement. Prosecutors played jurors excerpts from three videos Jane said featured her. Court officials set up opaque screens around the jurors so reporters and spectators could not see the videos or the jurors’ reactions. But the sound was heard. In one video, the girl can be heard calling the man “daddy” repeatedly. At one point she asks, “Daddy, do you still love me?” The man gives her clear sexual instructions. Prosecutors said Kelly shot the video that was also evidence in the 2008 trial in a log cabin-themed room in his North Side Chicago home around 1998. Another accuser, Pauline, said Jane introduced her to Kelly when they were 14-year-old high school classmates in 1998. At Kelly’s Chicago home later that year, Pauline described her shock when she said she first walked into Kelly and a naked Jane. She said Kelly told her that everyone has secrets. “That’s our secret,” he testified, he said. Pauline told jurors she still cares for Kelly. But as a 37-year-old mom, she said she now has a different perspective. “If anyone did anything to my children,” she said, “I kill them. Period.”
