(NewsNation) — R&B artist R. Kelly’s sex trafficking conviction and 30-year prison sentence was upheld Wednesday by a federal appeals court.
Kelly, 58, claimed that federal prosecutors failed to prove he led a racketeering scheme where he recruited underage girls for sex and then violated several victims. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected his claim.
“Enabled by a constellation of managers, assistants, and other staff for over twenty-five years,” Kelly used his fame to lure girls and young women into his grasp, Circuit Judge Denny Chin wrote.
During the trial, Chin said evidence showed he would isolate them from friends and family; control “nearly every aspect of their lives” and abuse them.
“There was extensive evidence showing how Kelly ensnared young girls and women into his orbit, endeavored to control their lives, and secured their compliance with his personal and sexual demands through verbal and physical abuse, threats of blackmail, and humiliation,” Chin said. “A jury was permitted to infer, from this evidence, that Kelly had in place a ‘scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause the (girls) to believe’ that they would be harmed if they did not comply with his sexual demands.”
Kelly was found guilty in 2021 of racketeering and sex trafficking by a Brooklyn federal court jury, and jurors in Chicago convicted him on three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex. A Chicago appeals court rejected Kelly’s challenge to a 20-year sentence in that case as well.
Lawyers for Kelly did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. He has previously denied wrongdoing.
The Associated Presscontributed to this report.