R Kelly sentenced to extra year in prison - charges relate to child enticement & indecent photos of children

R Kelly has been sentenced to one extra year in prison on charges relating to child enticement and indecent photos of children after a ruling by federal court. The disgraced R&B singer received a 20-year sentence on Tuesday, and will be serving the sentence simultaneously alongside the 30-year sentence he received last year.

The Grammy Winner, real name Robert Sylvester Kelly, was found guilty in a New York court after a high profile case in 2021, on charges of racketeering and trafficking after years of reports from the music industry. Kelly will now serve a maximum 31 years in prison and is not eligible for release until he is 80 years old.

Questions in the Chicago district court were whether R Kelly would serve his new sentence simultaneously with, or at the end of, his current 30-year sentence, which would equal a lifetime sentence.

Prosecutors had argued that serving the prison time after his current sentence would mean the singer would die in prison, but that his lack of remorse and the significance of his crimes against children justified it.

R Kelly became one of the biggest names in R&B in the world, and had several number one hits including Ignition and I Believe I Can Fly. Accusations against the singer had been appearing as early as the 1990s, but the 2019 documentary Surviving R Kelly and the MeToo movement caused public outrage, eventually leading to his arrest and sentencing.