Paris attacker sentenced to life imprisonment

NEW YORK: Infamous R&B superstar R. Kelly was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years in prison for using his fame to sexually abuse some young fans, including young fans, as part of a decades-long systematic scheme.
Through tears and anger, many of Kelly’s allegations surfaced in a New York City court, and the singer himself, that he misled and victimized her.
“You made me do things that broke my soul. I really wanted me to die because of how low you made me feel,” said an unnamed survivor, directly addressing Kelly, who folded her hands and kept her eyes low.
“do you remember that?” He asked.
Kelly, 55, made no statement and did not react to his sentencing hearing, which also included a $100,000 fine. He has denied wrongdoing, and he plans to appeal his conviction.
The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling songwriter was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking in a trial last year that gave voice to accusers who previously thought her stories were being ignored because they were black women. She was
Another of his accusers said at the sentencing, “The victims are no longer the victims we once were.”
“There wasn’t a single day in my life, until this moment, that I really believed the judicial system would come for black and brown girls,” she said outside the courtroom.
A third woman, crying and snorting when she addressed the court, also said that Kelly’s conviction renewed her faith in the legal system.
The woman said Kelly hunted her at the age of 17 after going to a concert.
“I was scared, naive and didn’t know how to handle the situation,” she said, so she didn’t speak at the time.
“Silence,” she said, “is a very secluded place.”
Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonzen, said he was “devastated” by the sentence and saddened by what he heard.
“He is a human being. He feels what other people are feeling. But that doesn’t mean he can accept responsibility the way the government wants him and others want him to. Because He disagrees with the characterizations that have been created about him,” she said.
The sentence marks a slow decline for Kelly, best known for works including the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and the cult classic “Trapped in the Closet”, a multifaceted tale of sexual betrayal and intrigue. Is.
She was loved by millions of fans and sold millions of albums in the 1990s even after allegations of mistreatment of young girls went public. He pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in Chicago in 2008, when a jury acquitted him.
Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct did not unfold until #MeToo counted, reaching a climax following the release of the documentary “Surviving Are Kelly”.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Brian Peace said Wednesday, “I hope this conviction serves as your testimony that it doesn’t matter how powerful, rich or famous your abuser is, or how small they make you feel.” Let’s do it – justice hears only the truth.”
A Brooklyn federal court jury indicted the singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, after hearing that he used his crew of managers and aides to meet the girls and keep them obedient, an operation that prosecutors said. amount to a criminal enterprise.
Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and tragic whims when they were young.
The accusers alleged that they were ordered to sign non-disclosure forms and subjected to threats and punishments such as violent beatings if they were referred to as “Rob’s Law”.
Some said they believed the videotape they had shot would be used against them if they uncovered what was happening.
According to testimony, Kelly gave herpes to several accusers without disclosing she had an STD, forcing a teenage boy to have sex with a naked girl who came out from under a boxing ring in his garage, and shot an embarrassing video that showed a victim smearing. Stool on his face as punishment for breaking his rules.
US District Judge Ann Donnelly sentenced him, saying, “The horrors your victims have suffered.” “No price was too high to pay for your happiness.”
Lizzette Martinez was a 17-year-old aspiring singer when she met Kelly at a mall in Florida. She was promised counsel, but quickly became “a sex slave,” she said outside court on Wednesday.
When asked whether Kelly’s 30-year sentence was a sufficient sentence, she paused before answering.
“I, personally, don’t think that’s enough,” she said, “but I’m pleased with it.”
In the trial, evidence was also presented about a fraudulent marriage plan devised to protect Kelly, who feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994, when she was just 15 years old. . Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license that incorrectly listed his age. as 18; He was 27 years old at that time.
Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her debut album “Edge Ain’t Nothing But a Number” in 1994. He died in a plane crash in 2001 at the age of 22.
Kelly did not testify at her trial, but her then-lawyers portrayed her accusers as girlfriends and groupies who were not forced to do anything against their will and stayed with them because they changed their lifestyle. enjoyed the benefits.
His current lawyers argued that he should not have been imprisoned for more than 10 years because his childhood was painful “with severe, prolonged sexual abuse, associated with poverty and violence.”
As an adult with a “lack of literacy”, her lawyers said, Starr was “repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by people paid to protect her.”
The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually harassed or abused unless they come out in public, as Martinez has done. Many of the women who spoke at Kelly’s sentencing were identified by first names or pseudonyms only.
Kelly has been in jail without bail since 2019. He still faces charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice in Chicago, where a trial is set to begin on August 15.