CNN
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R. Kelly – who’s currently serving a greater than a 30-year jail sentence in North Carolina – is asking the Supreme Courtroom to listen to an enchantment of his federal intercourse crimes convictions.
The disgraced R&B singer’s protection legal professional, Jennifer Bonjean, has filed a petition to the US Supreme Court, requesting to throw out his Chicago conviction for possession of kid pornography and attractive minors to have interaction in sexual exercise, claiming that the costs needs to be barred by the statute of limitations.
R. Kelly was already serving a 30-year sentence for intercourse trafficking, stemming from his 2021 New York case, on the time he was convicted of baby pornography in Chicago for which he was sentenced to 20 years in 2023. He’s additionally interesting the New York conviction, although that case is just not a part of the excessive courtroom petition.
Within the petition, Bonjean argues that the musician was wrongly retroactively prosecuted below a federal legislation – the PROTECT Act – which handed in 2003 and made the statute of limitations indefinite for intercourse crimes with minors.
Bonjean argues that the conduct for which R. Kelly was convicted occurred within the Nineteen Nineties – earlier than the legislation that expanded the statute of limitations handed.
“Defendant’s expenses have been time barred,” the petition says. “As a result of Congress didn’t expressly state that the PROTECT Act ought to apply retroactivity and even rejected a model of the invoice that embody a retroactive provision, the PROTECT Act didn’t lengthen the statute of limitations and Defendant was convicted of time-barred offenses.”
R. Kelly has already tried to enchantment his conviction, based mostly on the identical statute of limitations argument, which was upheld by a federal appeals courtroom this previous April. Judges rejected Bonjean’s argument, stating in their decision that “it’s not unconstitutional to use a more moderen statute of limitations to previous conduct when the defendant was topic to prosecution on the time of the change, as Kelly was in 2003.”
With that enchantment rejected, Bonjean has now escalated her declare on to the Supreme Courtroom. The excessive courtroom accepts only a few petitions to listen to a case annually, and the Division of Justice nonetheless has an opportunity to reply and oppose the petition.
Bonjean represented Invoice Cosby in his successful appeal in 2021, which was additionally based mostly on a authorized technicality. Bonjean can also be at the moment representing Harvey Weinstein in his Los Angeles appeal. The previous Hollywood producer’s New York conviction was overturned earlier this 12 months on a legal technicality relating to witnesses who have been admitted within the case.
CNN has reached out to Bonjean for touch upon the brand new petition to the excessive courtroom.