LIVE UPDATES
-WNjIOIgCnQ.jpg "R. Kelly Appeals To Supreme Court For Overturn Over Child Sex Crime")
Renowned singer and songwriter R. Kelly has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn his 2023 conviction for child sex crimes.
The artiste convicted of perpetrating several sex offenses against children believed the statute used to charge him was filed incorrectly.
On Tuesday, July 30, Kelly's lawyers filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, arguing that the federal PROTECT Act, a 2003 law that allows prosecutors to pursue charges against child sex abusers during the child's lifetime, does not apply to Kelly's case because the abuse occurred before the act was passed.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago brought 13 charges against Kelly, under the PROTECT Act in 2020 for crimes he committed against three underage girls in the 1990s.
He was convicted on six of those charges including creating child pornography and coercing minors into illegal sexual activity. Kelly is currently serving a 20-year sentence for that conviction.
Already, a federal court of appeal in Northern Illinois ruled against Kelly earlier this year. A three-judge panel for the 7th Circuit said that the law was correctly applied because the three victims are still alive and that it is not unconstitutional to apply laws retroactively.
It is not the first time Kelly had asked a court to overturn one of his various child sex crime convictions.
