NEW YORK (AP) — R. Kelly’s lawyer told an appeals court Monday that all kinds of legitimate organizations — even college fraternities — could be deemed racketeering organizations under a law used to convict the R&B superstar at his Brooklyn trial of sexu@lly abusing young fans, including children, for decades.
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean, seeking to reverse his 2021 convictions or to win him a new trial, tried to persuade three judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that prosecutors improperly used a racketeering statute written to shut down organized crime to go after the singer.
She said it wasn’t fair that prosecutors charged Kelly, 57, with leading a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) enterprise from 1994 to 2018 compromised of individuals who promoted his music and recruited women and girls to engage in illegal sexu@l activity and produce child pornogr@phy.
“This was not a collection of people who had a purpose to recruit girls for sexu@l abuse or child pornogr@phy,” Bonjean said. “Whether they turned a blind eye, whether some of them suspected that some of these girls were underage, that’s a whole different matter.
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