R Kelly suffers legal blow as court denies latest appeal
The disgraced singer sought to reverse his 2021 conviction
R. Kelly faced another setback in his long legal battle after the court denied his latest appeal.
The former singer is serving a 30-year prison sentence after he was convicted of child sexual abuse in 2021.
According to AllHipHop, Kelly recently appealed in federal court to overturn his sex trafficking and racketeering convictions but the judges rejected almost every claim in the petition.
The 58-year-old’s 2021 conviction was mostly upheld by the judges, with the court affirming nine charges against him.
The appeal was based on arguments by Kelly’s attorneys that the jury who found him guilty was biased due to the inadequacy of the artist’s former legal team.
The court dismissed the claims by ruling that there is no evidence to prove the jurors’ prejudice or that Kelly’s former attorneys failed him.
Kelly was accused of sexually abusing minors in the ’90s but was prosecuted in 2002 after his explicit videos were leaked.
The I Believe I Can Fly singer was controversially found not guilty in 2008. However, law enforcement authorities reopened the investigation after the victims revealed their disturbing stories in the 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly.
