Rapper R. Kelly, 54, was found guilty on charges of sexual exploitation of a child, sex trafficking across state lines, racketeering, and bribery after a long six week trial in the Eastern District of New York. Rapper R. Kelly’s real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.

After accusations of sexual abuse and other charges that accumulated over a 25 year period, rapper/singer R. Kelley was found guilty by jury for enacting a scheme to sexually abuse children and young women. Before the guilty verdict was read after only nine hours of deliberation, eleven of R. Kelley’s accusers took the stand to describe the violence and sexual humiliation they suffered from the star.

The jury of seven men and five woven found that the government had proved beyond doubt that twelve of the fourteen criminal acts involving five victims, including the singer Aaliyah, who married Kelly after she became pregnant by Kelley at 15 (Kelly was 27), and tragically died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.

Multiple victims testified they were just children, young boys and girls, when Kelley lured them in to sexually abused them for his sexual pleasures. Kelly chose some of his sexual victims from seeing them in his concert audiences and others he enticed others by offering to help in their early music careers.

Kelley has repeatedly denied all charges, his defense team told the jury that they had been misled by “opportunistic accusers” about consensual relationships.

This guilty verdict comes thirteen years after R. Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in Illinois, but he is still facing additional charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice in both Illinois and Minnesota.

R. Kelly will be sentenced on May 4th, 2022. He faces a possible prison sentence of 10 years to life.