R Kelly prosecutors say music royalties should go to his victims

Prosecutors involved in the R Kelly trial have moved to seize the disgraced singer’s music royalties from Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Publishing Inc.

According to the US government, the 56-year-old, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison on sex trafficking and racketeering convictions, has so far only paid $28,000 out of the $504,549 he was ordered to pay his victims after being convicted in 2021.

Now, prosecutors have demanded that all future royalties should be given to his victims, Bloomberg reports.

Earlier this year, Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child sex crimes.

In February, a federal judge ruled that Kelly will serve this sentence at the same time as the 30 years he is currently serving on racketeering charges.

This year, a jury in Chicago found the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer guilty of six of the 13 charges brought against him in September 2022. These included three counts of coercing minors into illegal sexual activity as well as three counts of creating pornography that showed him abusing a minor.

Kelly was also acquitted of two further counts of enticing minors into having sex and one related to obstruction of an earlier investigation into the abuse of the goddaughter he has been found guilty of abusing.

In his 2021 convictions, Kelly was convicted on nine charges, which included racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which prohibits the interstate transportation of women and girls for “any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offence”.

During the trial, victims described numerous instances of abuse they suffered from Kelly.

One of the victims said he used his celebrity to “groom” underage girls and boys.

Kelly first faced accusations that he was having sex with minors in the 1990s. In 2002, he was charged for allegedly posessing child sexual abuse images, but was ultimately acquitted in 2008.

New charges against Kelly began after the #MeToo movement began picking up steam.

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