Segun Akanni, Toronto, Canada 
US prosecutors on Wednesday said that the multi-platinum R&B singer R. Kelly deserves to spend more than 25 years in prison after being convicted of sex trafficking.
In a filing in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said Kelly exploited his stardom and wealth over a quarter-century to lure women and underage girls for sex, demonstrating a “callous disregard” for his victims and showing no remorse.
“Indeed, the defendant’s decades of crime appear to have been fueled by narcissism and a belief that his musical talent absolved him of any need to conform his conduct – no matter how predatory, harmful, humiliating or abusive to others – to the strictures of the law,” prosecutors said.
Kelly, 55, who has been jailed since 2019, remains a “serious danger” to the public, justifying keeping him behind bars until well into his 70s, prosecutors added.
Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Kelly, has said he should spend fewer than 14 years in prison, and will in a filing next Monday explain why his “history and characteristics” justify a shorter sentence.
Bonjean’s office declined to comment.
Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, faces a minimum 10-year term at his June 29 sentencing.
He is among the most prominent people convicted of sexual misbehaviour during the #MeToo movement against such conduct by prominent men, Reuters reports.
Testimony from 45 government witnesses, including several of Kelly’s abuse victims, portrayed in often graphic detail an unseemly side to a music career highlighted by the 1996 Grammy-winning smash “I Believe I Can Fly.”(Reuters)
