R&B singer R. Kelly, who for years dominated the world of music, was found guilty on Monday of being the ringleader of a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex.
After nine hours of deliberations, the jury made up of seven men and five women in federal court in Brooklyn convicted R. Kelly of racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law, after beginning its deliberations Friday afternoon.
The high-profile trial was the first of it’s kind where a large majority of the defendant’s accusers were Black women, and the trial was widely seen as a test of the inclusivity of the broader movement to hold powerful men accountable for sexual misconduct.
In all, Kelly could face decades in prison.
The jury, made up of seven men and five women, began deliberating on Friday of last week.
In all, Kelly could face decades in prison if found guilty.
The verdict comes 13 years after Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was acquitted of child pornography charges at an Illinois state trial.
Mr. Kelly, once one of the biggest names in popular music, now faces the possibility of life in prison, capping a remarkable reversal of fortune. As the verdict was read, he sat motionless in the courtroom, wearing a navy blue suit and glasses, while his facial expression hidden behind a mask.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 4.
The conviction is likely to further diminish the widespread public image that Mr. Kelly enjoyed through the early 2000s as a charismatic and genre-redefining lyricist.
