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By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A lawyer Kelly He fought Monday to convince a U.S. appeals court to overturn the former R&B superstar’s sex trafficking conviction and 30-year prison sentence.
Kelly, 57, is appealing his September 2021 conviction by a Brooklyn, New York, jury on all nine charges he faced, including racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across of state borders to prostitute themselves.
His attorney Jennifer Bonjean told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that federal prosecutors failed to prove that the singer led an extortion scheme in which he recruited underage girls for sex and then raped several victims.
Questions from the three-judge panel in Manhattan suggested that argument might be a tough sell.
“Did the government not demonstrate that one of the purposes of this company was to recruit girls so that Kelly could engage in illegal sexual activity?” Circuit Judge Denny Chin asked.
Bonjean said he didn’t do so based on evidence such as Kelly’s employees passing the backstage phone number to the singer, perhaps best known for the 1996 Grammy-winning hit “I Believe I Can Fly.”
“There was no evidence that anyone came out and said, ‘May I ask how old you are? Are you a minor? Come back; we want to introduce you to Mr. Kelly.'”
Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan suggested that the ages of some accusers may have been obvious.
“The appearance of these girls would be enough evidence, right?” -she asked Bonjean.
“Looking young doesn’t mean you know someone is underage,” Bonjean responded.
‘NO EXIT’
The panel’s questioning of U.S. Attorney Kayla Bensing was less direct, as she spent three uninterrupted minutes recounting testimony from some accusers.
Some of the government’s 45 witnesses also testified that Kelly and his associates imposed repressive conditions, such as requiring victims to call him “Dad” and obtain permission to eat or go to the bathroom.
“The jury was entitled to infer that Kelly and his inner circle knew what was going on,” Bensing said. “She used the company to make them feel like they were confined and had no way out.”
Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, is among the most prominent people convicted of sexual misconduct during the #MeToo movement.
His conviction and sentencing followed two decades of allegations of misconduct, which he has repeatedly denied.
Other arguments in Kelly’s appeal included that jurors prejudged his guilt, that his attorney was ineffective, and that the jury was improperly “flooded” with evidence of other alleged wrongdoing.
Kelly was also found guilty in September 2022 by a Chicago jury of sex crimes against children and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
But the judge added only one year to Kelly’s prison sentence, with the other 19 years overlapping the original 30-year sentence.
Kelly has been behind bars since July 2019, now at the Butner, North Carolina, prison that housed the late Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. He will be 78 years old when he is eligible for release in 2045.
(This story was refiled to correct a typo in which Kelly’s attorney addressed “the” appeals court instead of “him” appeals court in paragraph 3)
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski)