Women who had been trafficked and abused by R Kelly sobbed with relief outside court on Wednesday, as the 55-year-old was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
Before Judge Ann Donnelly sentenced him, seven women spoke up, with one anonymous victim telling him, ‘You degraded me, humiliated me, and broke my spirit.’ I wished to die because of how you treated me.’
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Donnelly, whose sentence was harsher than the federal prosecutors had requested, told Kelly, ‘You left a trail of broken lives in your wake.’
Lizzette Martinez, a 17-year-old cheerleader at North Miami Beach Senior High School when she met Kelly, then 28, said she was relieved the trial was over.
Before meeting R Kelly, she described herself to reporters as an ‘up-and-coming singer, a girl full of life.’ She described herself as a ‘sex slave’ after that.
‘I never thought that I would be here to see him be held accountable for the atrocious things that he did to children,’ she said, speaking outside the Brooklyn courtroom.
She stated that his 30-year sentence was insufficient, but she was pleased with it. It’s fine.’ Martinez told the court earlier, with her attorney Gloria Allred by her side, that he began abusing her two months after they met.
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‘I was left in shock, confused and in tears,’ she said.
‘I do not know how to put a price on all I’ve gone through. I am now 45, a mother and I struggle with mental health.’
Kelly did not look at Kelly Martinez as she spoke. ‘Robert, you destroyed so many people’s lives,’ she told him.
Jovante Cunningham, who met the singer when she was 14 and later became one of his backing dancers, said she, too, never dared to dream of justice. ‘There wasn’t a day in my life, up until this moment, that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for black and brown girls,’ she said.
‘Thirty years did he do this, and 30 years is what he got.’
She told reporters outside court: ‘Being in a situation as such affords you the ability to be re-victimized over and over again in different areas of your life.
‘When you are taught to be quiet and to keep silent about things that should be spoken about openly, you find yourself reclused.
‘And that often affords people the ability to manipulate you.’
Asked who forced her to keep quiet, she replied: ‘Society. When people are telling you you’re not telling the truth and there’s no support.’
Despite the defense lawyers’ request for a sentence of 10 years or less, Judge Ann Donnelly handed down Kelly’s sentence in Brooklyn Federal Court on Wednesday.
Prosecutors had requested at least 25 years in prison. “The most seasoned investigators will not forget the horrors your victims endured,” Donnelly told Kelly.
Kelly, who did not speak during his sentencing, learned his fate after some of his accusers told the court, in tears and anger, that he had preyed on them and misled his fans.
Donnelly told Kelly that ‘the most seasoned investigators will not forget the horrors your victims endured.’
She continued: ‘These crimes were calculated and carefully planned and regularly executed for almost 25 years.
‘You taught them that love is enslavement and violence.’
He was also sentenced to $100,000 in fines. Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center since his trial. It hasn’t been revealed where Kelly will serve his sentence.
The post R Kelly’s Sobbing Victims Stunned As Singer Is Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison appeared first on SurgeZirc UK.
