R. Kelly Finally Gets What He Deserves

Following a six-week trial, R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday after being convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly sentenced Kelly and ordered him to pay a $100,000 fine.

The victims joined hands as the sentence was read and Kelly had no apparent reaction.

“Although sex was certainly a weapon that you used, this is not a case about sex. It’s a case about violence, cruelty, and control,” Judge Donnelly told him during the sentencing.

Kelly’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean said they are planning to appeal.

“30 years is like life for him,” she said. She insisted that Kelly is “not a predator.”

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace called the sentence a “significant outcome” for Kelly’s victims.

Kelly “preyed upon children and young women … for decades,” according to Peace. He would “force victims, including minors” to be in “porno films” which the singer “produced and directed.”

“The sentence shows that the witnesses reclaim control over their lives,” he added. “This is a victory for them. It doesn’t matter how powerful … justice only hears the truth”

Seven of Kelly’s victims gave impact statements during the sentencing hearing.

“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” one woman told the singer. “Do you remember that?”

Another woman who was sobbing as she spoke said Kelly’s conviction restored her faith in the legal system.

“I once lost hope,” she said, addressing the court and prosecutors, “but you restored my faith.”

The woman said Kelly victimized her after she went to a concert when she was 17.

“Silence,” she said, “is a very lonely place.”

The “I Believe I Can Fly” singer was convicted on one count of racketeering. The racketeering includes 14 underlying acts of sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery, and sex trafficking charges.

Kelly used his “fame, money and popularity” to systematically “prey upon children and young women for his own sexual gratification,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.

“He continued his crimes and avoided punishment for them for almost 30 years and must now be held to account,” prosecutors wrote.

Kelly’s lawyers had argued he should get no more than 10 years in prison because he had a traumatic childhood himself,  “involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence.”

As an adult with “literacy deficiencies,” the star was “repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him,” his lawyers said.