US Supreme Court rebuffs singer R. Kelly's
challenge to sex abuse conviction
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear imprisoned former R&B superstar R. Kelly's appeal of his 2022 federal conviction on charges involving child pornography and luring underage girls to have sex with him, one of two cases in which he was found guilty of sex crimes.
The justices turned away Kelly's challenge to a lower court's decision upholding his conviction by a federal jury in Chicago.
Kelly, now 57, claimed in his Supreme Court filing that prosecutors filed the charges against him in the case after the statute of limitations had expired.
During that trial, several women testified that Kelly sexually abused them when they were minors. The jury also was shown video of Kelly molesting his goddaughter, who testified that the abuse began in the 1990s when she was a teenager.
Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the case. He was found guilty of three child pornography counts and three counts of enticing minors for sex, but acquitted of seven other charges that included obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to receive child pornography.
Kelly in 2021 was convicted in another trial by a jury in New York City's borough of Brooklyn on all nine charges he faced, including racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which forbids transporting people across state lines for prostitution. He was given a 30-year prison sentence in that case, set to largely overlap with his sentence in the Chicago case.
Kelly is incarcerated at a Butner, North Carolina federal prison and is eligible for release in 2045, according to federal Bureau of Prisons records.
Kelly filed his Supreme Court appeal after the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April rejected his challenge.
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Duncan Bartlett former Host of BBC World Business Report jailed for 8 years after pleading guilty to 20 counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity
Duncan Bartlett former Host of the BBC World Business Report jailed for 8 years after pleading guilty to 20 counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity
The 52-year-old was sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court in north London following his guilty plea to 35 charges in August. Notably, Bartlett previously served as the BBC's correspondent in Tokyo and spent 15 years working for the BBC World Service.
According to the Metropolitan Police, Bartlett was first arrested in September 2021, after intelligence was received which linked him to accessing indecent images of children, Independent reported.
The forces seized his electronic devices which had 6,000 indecent images, and held records of payments to the Philippines to people who organised the abuse of children.
Forces reported that some of the victims have been identified and are now receiving safeguarding measures in the Philippines.
Bartlett pleaded guilty to multiple child sex offenses, including causing and paying for sexual activity with minors, producing child pornography, and encouraging others to commit similar crimes.
Detective Constable Emily Dawson who led the investigation said, "Over a period of seven years, Bartlett made multiple payments to people in the Philippines asking that they arrange children to be sexually exploited for his own gratification.
“With close liaison work with our counterparts in the Philippines, we managed to identify and safeguard some of these children while several adults were arrested.
“Bartlett’s behaviour was utterly abhorrent but thanks to the painstaking work of detectives, a case documenting his offending was put together – this left him with no option but to admit his guilt," the Independent reported.
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