R. Kelly Sentenced: Full Timeline of His Case

R. Kelly was musically recognized in the 1990s as the most important male R&B artist in the United States. Hits like 'I Believe I Can Fly' or 'Ignition' left him at the top of the genre. Now his reality is against him for using his influence to commit multiple sexual crimes.

A week ago, R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years by a New York jury. He still has to answer for crimes related to child pornography in his native Chicago. Below is a detailed timeline of each of the events that transformed an R&B legend into a fearsome criminal.

1994

For this year, the artist married Aaliyah when she was just 15 years old and he was 27. According to a testimony offered by a former manager who worked with him, R. Kelly bribed an official to falsify the marriage certificate and raise the singer the age to 18. Then everything was discovered and by 1995 the marriage was null.

1996

R. Kelly received his first indictment until this year. Tiffany Hawkins sued him for emotional stress and personal injury. According to the documentation that was collected in court, she had a sexual relationship with the singer since 1991, when she was 15 years old and he was 24. This relationship ended when she turned 18. The plaintiff requested a compensation sum of 10 million dollars, but they reached an agreement whereby they compensated her with 250 thousand dollars in 1998.

2001

In this year came the second lawsuit against him. Tracy Sampson was a 17-year-old intern at Epic Records and was pressured by R. Kelly to have sex. She described that the artist treated her like a sexual object and controlled various aspects of her life. According to the New York Post, the case was settled through compensation, the amount of which was not disclosed.

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2002

This was the key year in which R. Kelly's accusation load became untenable. In April, Patrice Jones accused him of forcing her to abort a child that was the product of a sexual relationship they had when she was a minor. In May, Montina Woods sued him for recording her having sex with him without her consent and for leaking the video to the internet. Both cases were settled out of court with unknown compensation.

In June of that year, he was charged with more than 21 charges related to pornography of a minor who was born in 1984. Thanks to an anonymous video that reached the Chicago Sun Times, R. Kelly was jailed, but was released on $750,000 bail. Six years later, the case went to trial and the jury concluded that, although the video was truthful, it could not conclude that the woman was a minor.

In Florida, he also faced at least 12 charges for child pornography, as the FBI seized a camera that contained sexual photos of him with minors. The court cleared him of the charges for lack of evidence to justify an investigation.

2017

After more than a decade another legal accusation fell against R. Kelly. Former employees of his and parents of the victims accused him of promoting a sexual "cult". According to the legal report that was known, the singer took advantage of at least six women who sought him out for help in their careers. R. Kelly controlled most of the personal aspects of their lives and recorded them having sex with him.

2018 to 2021

In this period of time R. Kelly had a lot of accusations. First, Jerhonda Pace broke a confidentiality agreement and reported that she was abused as a minor; Kitti Jones pointed him out for forcing her to have sex with other women. In 2019 he was accused of having sex with a minor under 14 years of age and there was a video as evidence. That same year accusations fell on him for sex trafficking, since he had a scheme to recruit and transport minors to produce images and videos with sexual content in Illinois and New York. He was also involved in a case of induction into prostitution when a 17-year-old girl asked him for an autograph and he paid her $200 to dance naked in his room.