The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an appeal from R. Kelly, who is currently serving time in a federal prison in Illinois for child pornography and enticement of minors.
The justices did not detail their reasoning on why they declined to hear the case.
The Grammy-winning singer’s lawyers had argued against his 20-year sentence, saying a “shorter statute of limitations on child sex crime prosecutions should have applied to offenses dating back to the 1990s,” according to the Associated Press.
Related: R. Kelly’s Daughter Makes Disturbing Claims About Her Dad in New Docuseries
Born Robert Sylvester Kelly, the singer on April 26, 2024, tried to get his conviction overturned, but a federal appeals court in Chicago upheld the sentence. With the Supreme Court rejecting the case, there is no chance for appeal.
R. Kelly was found guilty by a federal jury in Chicago in September 2022, on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity.
A judge later sentenced him to 20 years in prison, in addition to a previous 30-year sentence handed down in June 2022 in Brooklyn, New York, on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
It was ruled that the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer could serve all but one year of the 20-year sentence simultaneously with his 30-year term.
Kelly is also appealing the 30-year sentence.
For decades, the singer was followed by accusations of sexual misconduct and child molestation.
The allegations received renewed attention during Lifetime’s 2019 docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, its follow-up Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning, and the final installment, Surviving R. Kelly: The Final Chapter.
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