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R. Kelly Guilty on 11 Federal Charges

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LM K
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R. Kelly Guilty on 11 Federal Charges

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Post by LM K »

I cut out a lot of the below article. Kelly's crimes are shocking, and you can read about them at the linky.


R. Kelly Has Been Found Guilty Of Federal Crimes After 11 Sexual Abuse Victims Testified Against Him
R. Kelly, the R&B singer who for more than 25 years faced accusations of sexually abusing dozens of young victims without consequence, was found guilty of federal crimes on Monday.

For over a month, Kelly has been on trial in Brooklyn federal court on one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, a federal law addressing sex trafficking. Federal prosecutors accused Kelly of running an “enterprise” through which he exploited his star power time and time again to prey on underage girls, young women, and at least two male victims.

Jurors deliberated for just nine hours to reach their verdict, finding Kelly guilty on all counts.
He now faces decades in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced May 4, 2022.

The federal charges against Kelly came after BuzzFeed News in 2017 published an investigation by Chicago journalist Jim DeRogatis revealing that parents had told police that the singer was allegedly holding their daughters against their will in a “sex cult.” In January 2019, the documentary Surviving R. Kelly further detailed their allegations and those of multiple women who said Kelly had abused them, once again raising questions about how he had escaped accountability.

At trial, the government laid out an expansive, detailed case to prove Kelly’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, bringing hundreds of pieces of evidence and 45 witnesses, 11 of whom were his victims. They testified, at times through tears, about how Kelly sexually, emotionally, physically, and verbally abused them, some for years. He was directly charged for crimes related to just six women — including Aaliyah, the late R&B singer Kelly married when she was 15 — but the government used evidence that he’d abused others to argue that the scope of Kelly’s actions amounted to racketeering.
:snippity:

Though Kelly has been indicted multiple times since the late 1990s, he has never faced criminal consequences in connection with sexual abuse. (In addition to this year’s federal trial in New York, he is awaiting trial on federal and state charges in Illinois and also faces charges in Minnesota.) He was found not guilty of producing child sexual abuse images in 2008 in spite of a video that allegedly showed him having sex with and urinating on a 14-year-old girl. She and her family did not testify during the trial, and jurors questioned if the video actually showed the abuse of an underage girl. Some other sexual misconduct allegations were swept under the rug with secret settlements. And as was an open secret for years, in 1994 a 27-year-old Kelly married Aaliyah when she was just 15.
:snippity:

On Monday, acting US Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis praised the victims for their courage in revealing intimate and painful details of their abuse in open court. The guilty verdict would not have been possible without them, she said, and she recognized the risks they took in speaking up.

"No one deserves what they experienced at his hands, or the threats and harassment they faced in telling the truth about what happened to them," she said.

A small but devoted contingent of R. Kelly superfans attended the trial, many showing up nearly every day. In a park outside the courthouse, they would blast his music and write “Free R. Kelly” across the pavement in chalk. During court proceedings (the public and press viewed the trial remotely in an overflow room due to COVID safety protocols), fans would regularly interject to insult witnesses, accuse them of lying, and mutter their support to the defense. Disputes between the supporters over limited seats were commonplace, and one was arrested after a fellow supporter reported him for sexual harassment.

Kelly’s defense, which was led by attorney Deveraux Cannick, largely focused on painting the victims as liars. Throughout the trial, Cannick repeatedly blamed women who said they were abused, questioning several on why they didn’t leave Kelly sooner or call the police. (In fact, Kelly at times paid off-duty police officers, one of whom was a childhood friend, to serve as his security staff.) He suggested they were out for financial gain, “monetizing” their allegations through lawsuits and appearing in the docuseries. “A lot of people watched Surviving R. Kelly, and now a lot of people are surviving off R. Kelly,” he said in his closing argument, which contained bizarre metaphors and falsehoods about testimony.
:snippity:

“It’s like we took a time machine and went back to a courthouse in the 1950s,” Shihata said. “What they’re arguing is that all of these women and girls were asking for it, and they deserved what they got — never mind that many of them were teenagers, too young to consent.”
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Re: R. Kelly Guilty on 11 Federal Charges

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Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

At LAST!!!!!!!!

Simone Biles comments in this article about the sexual abuse she suffered from Nassar..

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... gymnastics
The 24-year-old, who had been expected to add to the four gold medals she won at Rio 2016, revealed in 2018 that she was one of the United States gymnasts abused by team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now serving a life sentence in jail. Earlier this month, when testifying at a senate committee hearing into the FBI’s handling of the Nassar case, she revealed how the burden of dealing with being a victim of sexual abuse had increased the pressure she felt in Tokyo.

If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,” she said in a New York Magazine interview. “I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much.

“But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was six years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
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Re: R. Kelly Guilty on 11 Federal Charges

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Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/ ... eb40e.html
In R. Kelly verdict, Black women see long-overdue justice

“Black women have been in this country for a long time and ... our bodies were never ours to begin with," said Kalimah Johnson, executive director of the SASHA Center in Detroit, which provides services to sexual assault survivors.

“No one allows us to be something worthy of protection," she said. “A human that needs love, and sacredness." It's as if, she said, "there’s nothing sacred about a Black woman’s body."

In a 2017 study from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, adults were asked about their perceptions of Black girls in comparison with white girls of the same age in terms of their needs for nurturing and protection, as well as their knowledge of adult topics like sex.

At all ages, Black girls were perceived as more adult than white girls, needing less protection and knowing more about sex. The gap was widest between Black and white for girls between the ages of 10 and 14, followed by girls between the ages of 5 and 9.
"Mickey Mouse and I grew up together." - Ruthie Tompson, Disney animation checker and scene planner and one of the first women to become a member of the International Photographers Union in 1952.
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