R. Kelly Sentenced to Additional Year in Prison for Chicago Sex Crimes

R. Kelly has been sentenced to one additional year in prison by a federal judge in Chicago. The full sentence is 20 years, which will run concurrently with the 30 years he was sentenced in his New York conviction.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the sentence was delivered by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber on Thursday morning (Feb. 23) at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago.

The conjoined sentence will now keep R. Kelly locked up into his late 70s. The sentence comes five months after a judge found Kelly guilty of three counts of producing child pornography. Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of 25 years, which would have placed him in a life sentence.

Lawyers for R. Kelly argued additional decades would be “overkill,” but victims thought the time would be justified for the damage done to their lives. One Jane Doe prepared a statement, which read, “Robert shattered me. I need closure. And I need Robert in jail for as long as the law will allow.”