State’s Attorney Drops Pending R. Kelly Sexual Assault Cases

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced on Monday that her office is dropping the pending sexual assault and abuse cases against disgraced singer and convicted felon R. Kelly, following federal convictions against him in New York and Chicago. Kelly is already serving 30 years for his conviction in New York and is expected to serve several decades once sentencing takes place in Chicago next month.

Foxx announced the news ahead of Tuesday’s court hearing related to the state charges. In February 2019, a Cook County grand jury gave Kelly four indictments. He was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four alleged victims, three of whom were under the age of consent. The alleged incidents occurred between 1998 and 2010.

Kelly was also charged by federal prosecutors in New York and Chicago later in 2019; those trials took precedence. In New York, he was convicted in 2021 of sexual exploitation of a child, racketeering, bribery and sex trafficking and is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence, though he is appealing the case.

Meanwhile, in September, a federal jury in Chicago found Kelly guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a child. The video central to the federal Chicago case was also the one involved in the 2008 child pornography trial where he was acquitted. He is expected to be sentenced on Feb. 23.

On Monday, Foxx said, “Mr. Kelly is potentially looking at a possibility of never walking out of prison again for the crimes that he’s committed,” Foxx said. “This office, in the pursuit of justice for the victims in our indictment as well as those across the country, worked tirelessly to get us to this point. While today’s cases are no longer being pursued, we believe that justice has been served and the sentences that have already been handed down to Mr. Kelly, as well as the sentence that will come down next month.”

She added that she understood as a survivor herself that the decision “may be disappointing” to the women who came forward in the state cases — some who have been waiting 20 years — for their day in court. But she said with Kelly likely serving decades in prison, that she and her office believed that “justice has been served.” She said her office personally consulted with the four alleged victims before making the decision, acknowledging that one of them voiced their disappointment.

Kelly is also facing charges of engaging in prostitution with a minor and soliciting a minor for sexual purposes in Minnesota.