Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, following his conviction last year on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges stemming from his efforts over years to use his fame to ensnare victims he sexually abused.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Kelly, 55, to more than 25 years behind bars, while his defence attorneys asked for 10 or fewer, saying prosecutors’ request was “tantamount to a life sentence.”
Jovante Cunningham, a former backup singer for Kelly, praised the sentence.
“I started this journey 30 years ago,” Cunningham said outside the court after the hearing. “There wasn’t a day in my life up until this moment that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for Black and brown girls. I stand here very proud of my judicial system, very proud of my fellow survivors and very pleased with the outcome.”
Jovante Cunningham, a former backup singer for Kelly, praised the sentence.
“I started this journey 30 years ago,” Cunningham said outside the court after the hearing. “There wasn’t a day in my life up until this moment that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for Black and brown girls. I stand here very proud of my judicial system, very proud of my fellow survivors and very pleased with the outcome.”
Jovante Cunningham, a former backup singer for Kelly, praised the sentence.
“I started this journey 30 years ago,” Cunningham said outside the court after the hearing. “There wasn’t a day in my life up until this moment that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for Black and brown girls. I stand here very proud of my judicial system, very proud of my fellow survivors and very pleased with the outcome.”
n over 14 hours of interviews with psychiatrist experts, Kelly said his closest relationship growing up was with his mother. His earliest memories were watching his mom perform as a singer in a band called “Six Pack,” and he would often accompany her to McDonald’s where she would drink coffee and they would share a pastry.
Kelly had never met his father and described his mother’s death as the most tragic event of his life, saying he would go to McDonald’s frequently to smell the coffee and remember her, according to a letter filed by Renee Sorrentino, a clinical assistant professor at Harvard Medical School
“To me, the ‘M’ stands for mom. Going to McDonald’s is always being around my mother,” Kelly said.
But his childhood was also marked by trauma.
Kelly saw a childhood sweetheart drown when he was a little boy. And people interviewed by psychiatrist experts say Kelly was repeatedly sexually abused beginning when he was a 6 or 7-year-old boy, his attorney wrote, saying he was abused by his older sister and also a landlord, at times on a “weekly basis.”
Sorrentino said in her letter that Kelly’s childhood sexual abuse may have contributed to his “hypersexuality,” or difficulty controlling sexual urges, and believes it was a factor in his criminal convictions.
While Kelly was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child, Sorrentino refused to diagnose Kelly with paedophilia because he told her his “sexual behaviour has never involved prepubescent individuals,” she said.
Faith, another woman who testified at Kelly’s trial, countered that defence argument Wednesday in her victim impact statement, saying her own father had also been sexually abused as a child but “never molested me.”
Among the letters that asked for a shorter sentence for Kelly was one written by Diana Copeland, Kelly’s former assistant who testified as a government witness and said she wrote a letter in support of Kelly because it was the “right thing to do.”
“God doesn’t want us to throw humans away,” Copeland wrote. “If we have the audacity to care for the perpetrators as well as the victims, we can all rise.”
Joycelyn Savage, who was considered a victim of Kelly’s by prosecutors, also remains a supporter.
“Robert and I are deeply in love and it breaks my heart that the government has created a narrative that I’m a victim,” Savage wrote. “I’m a grown woman, and can speak for myself which is why I wanted to provide this letter to the court.”
In her letter, Savage revealed she is now engaged to Kelly.
Ahead of the sentencing, a Chicago man who had attended Kelly’s trial in Brooklyn was arrested and charged for making threats against the three US attorneys who prosecuted Kelly, a copy of his arrest warrant shows.
Christopher Gunn was arrested Saturday for allegedly posting threats to kill or seriously injure the female prosecutors.
According to the arrest warrant, Gunn posted a video to his YouTube channel in October, shortly after Kelly was found guilty, that showed an image of the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York where the women work. Prosecutors believe a voice narrating the video is Gunn’s, and he says, “That’s where they are at. That’s where they work at … We’re going to storm the office,” saying each of the three prosecutors’ names.
“If you ain’t got the stomach for the sh*t we ’bout to do, I’m asking that you just bail out,” he allegedly said in the video.
Prosecutors also analyzed a CashApp account linked to Gunn that shows multiple transactions from February 26, 2021, to June 1 that indicate Gunn “engaged in the sale of firearm ammunition in relation to the Kelly matter,” they said. Transactions included payments for $20 with descriptions saying “30 rounds.. free R kelly.”
Prosecutors believe Gunn was planning to attend Kelly’s sentencing on Wednesday after he posted another video saying he had a “spot” for supporters to meet up near the courthouse.
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