R. Kelly’s attorney argued before an appeals court on Monday that a broad range of legitimate organizations, including college fraternities, could fall under the definition of racketeering organizations, a law utilized to convict the R&B superstar in his Brooklyn trial for sexually abusing young fans, including children, over several decades.
Jennifer Bonjean, the attorney representing Kelly and seeking to overturn his 2021 convictions or secure a new trial, endeavored to convince three judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that prosecutors misapplied a racketeering statute intended to target organized crime in their pursuit of the singer.
Bonjean asserted that it was unjust for prosecutors to charge Kelly, aged 57, with leading a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) enterprise from 1994 to 2018, consisting of individuals who promoted his music and recruited women and girls for illegal sexual activities and the production of child pornography.
“This was not a group of individuals with the intent to recruit girls for sexual abuse or child pornography,” Bonjean contended. “Whether they ignored the situation, or whether some suspected that some of these girls were underage, that’s an entirely different issue.
“And once we start down that path, where we claim it constitutes a RICO enterprise, we open the door to many organizations — including fraternity houses — all kinds of groups that could potentially be classified as RICO enterprises,” she added in defense of the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling artist.
Although the judges did not reach an immediate decision, they posed numerous inquiries to both Bonjean and a prosecutor who defended the government’s prosecution of the case, which resulted in a 30-year prison sentence in June 2022.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kayla Bensing argued that Kelly’s network of aides and employees formed part of the singer’s “system in place that lured young people into his orbit” before he subsequently “controlled their lives.”
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