R. Kelly Is Found Guilty on All Counts Twenty-five Years Too Late!

More on R. Kelly. This New Yorker article says that, “his conviction was twenty-five years too late!” However, in actuality it was just the time it took! It’s the same as all the others who eventually get revealed. Exactly how long it takes is based on how intelligent, clever, deceitful and evil they are, in addition to the resources they have available. The result is always in exact proportion to the input received and works on both sides of the equation. Some people who spend their lives in fruitful ways end up with Nobel Prizes, happy and peaceful lives, while others like Mr. Kelly, generate some other befitting end.

Look how long Bernie Madoff got away with his deception. It was inconceivable in retrospect! What about Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nasser? It testifies that people with high intelligence and unlimited resources like Kelly, can evade the truth for a long time. Its a hard image to grasp, but now imagine Kelly being lumped in with a former Cardinal of the Catholic Church? But there he is, side by side with Theodore McCarrick, first ordained in 1959. As a Priest, McArrick got away with decades of sexual abuse of countess children, same as Kellyt! It was all revealed in a 2020 Vatican report that led to his being defrocked and forced to resign.

How could this be the case? These two in the same boat? But there they are! We ask the same questions about all these ones gone astray. The point is, they were all smart, clever, charming and evil to the “nth” degree and they all had tremendous resources available to them.

But look where they are now! Lives as they’ve know them…over! Either actually, or might as well be! Plus in all cases, the result is in exact proportion to the seeds they planted. Its the Law of Cause & Effect, the basic law of all nature and science, in action!! Its the same law we are all subject to, from every thought, word and action we generate. Phew! A daunting thought, but true nonetheless! And we all know it on some level. Its why we so often point to some other person’s predicament and say knowingly, “See! What goes around, comes around!” What is so easy to see in others, is so hard to see in ourselves!

The article below is disturbing in that it describes how R. Kelly narrowly escaped being put where he belonged back in 2008. And in a twist of fate, that was the same year that Jeffrey Epstein also came a hairs-breadth from being put away, but was somehow allowed to walk, leaving both fiends free to continue bringing pain to countless others.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/r-kelly-is-found-guilty-on-all-counts-twenty-five-years-too-late?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker

R. Kelly Is Found Guilty on All Counts,
Twenty-five Years Too Late

The New Yorker By Jim DeRogatis

September 27, 2021

Twenty-five years ago, Tiffany Hawkins, a young woman from the South Side of Chicago, approached the Illinois State’s Attorney Office to press criminal charges against R. Kelly. She claimed that the R. & B. star had sexually abused her when she was a minor, but the office was not interested in pursuing the charges. “I was a young Black girl,” Hawkins told me, in 2019. “Who cared?” On Monday, after decades of accusations and a five-and-a-half-week trial in federal court, in New York, Kelly was found guilty of all charges, including racketeering, sex trafficking, bribery, and the sexual exploitation of a child. Kelly’s case, arguably the most high-profile sex-abuse trial in the history of the music industry, marks the first major prosecution in the #MeToo era on behalf of victims who are primarily women of color. Kelly now faces a possible sentence of ten years to life in prison.

“Robert Sylvester Kelly used his fame, his popularity, and the network of people at his disposal to target, groom, and exploit girls, boys, and young women for his sexual gratification,” the Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes told the jury, last Wednesday, during the prosecution’s closing argument. “He used lies, manipulation, threats, and physical abuse to dominate his victims. He used his money and his public persona to hide his crimes in plain sight.” In order to make its case, over the span of a month, the prosecution called on nearly four dozen witnesses, including many who claimed to have been victimized by Kelly.

The jury, comprising seven men and four women, reached its verdict relatively quickly. And, yet, as a journalist who has been reporting on Kelly’s abusive behavior for twenty-one years, I am struck by how many questions remain in this long and disturbing story. How, exactly, did Kelly avoid repercussions for illegally marrying his protégé Aaliyah, in 1994, when she was fifteen and he was twenty-seven, and they were two of the biggest stars in popular music? Aaliyah died in a plane crash in 2001, but prosecutors did not call the two family members who could have shed more light on her relationship with Kelly: her mother, Diane Haughton, and her uncle, Barry Hankerson, who ran Aaliyah’s record company, and who managed Kelly’s career from the making of his début album, in 1992, until early 2000. How did Kelly avoid a conviction, back in 2008, when the state of Illinois tried him for child pornography? (The answer to that one may come in a second federal case that Kelly still faces in the Northern District of Illinois; prosecutors allege that Kelly bribed one of his victims and her parents to lie to the grand jury.) And how many more victims are there who we don’t know about? This case involved twenty women and two men, but there are likely many more. Prosecutors told the judge that they intended to call Susan E. Loggans, a Chicago attorney who has said that she negotiated “numerous” settlements for Kelly’s underage victims—such as Tiffany Hawkins—in return for their signing nondisclosure agreements, but the jury never heard from her.

My biggest question, though, is how the many people Kelly victimized will begin to heal. I recently talked to several victims whose stories I’ve reported over the years, and, while they all said that they were glad to see Kelly finally face consequences for his actions, they also said that his conviction is too little, too late. When I heard the verdict, I thought of them, and I thought of an e-mail I received in November, 2016. “I am a mom of a young adult daughter who is caught up as a victim by Mr. Kelly,” Jonjelyn Savage wrote, in the first of many communications that prompted nine months of reporting for a story that I published in BuzzFeed News, in July, 2017. In that piece, Jonjelyn and her husband, Tim, said that, when their daughter Joycelyn, who goes by Joy, was nineteen years old, she moved out of her dorm room at Georgia Gwinnett College and began living with Kelly as part of a so-called cult of six women who were being abused at the singer’s homes near Atlanta and in Chicago. (One of the witnesses for the prosecution, Jane Doe No. 5, who testified at the trial, was another member of the cult.)

The Savages never stopped trying to bring their daughter home. Jonjelyn, who ran a small boutique in Atlanta, closed her store in order to devote herself full time to rescuing Joy. She and Tim welcomed the civil-rights attorney Gerald Griggs to help with their daughter’s case, and also Kenyette Tisha Barnes and Oronike Odeleye, the two Georgia activists who founded the #MuteRKelly movement. Together, they brought newly intense scrutiny of Kelly’s behavior, resulting in the 2019 docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” which prompted the federal investigation that ultimately led to the star’s indictment, trial, and conviction. But the Savage family has still not reunited with Joy; they’ve had almost no communication with her for the past five years. (They believe that she was in New York during the trial, living with an associate of Kelly’s. They expected that the singer’s defense team would call her to testify on his behalf, but she never appeared at the courthouse.) Jonjelyn and Tim told me that Joy, who is now twenty-six years old, has been “brainwashed.”

The same phrase was used by Alex, one of Kelly’s two male victims who took the witness stand at the trial, and who met the singer when he was sixteen; when asked by the defense why he had initially told federal investigators, in 2019, that he’d been the singer’s “personal shopper,” Alex said that Kelly had told him to say that, and that he’d been “brainwashed along.” The final witness for the prosecution, Dawn Hughes, a clinical and forensic psychologist, used a different term for the hold that Kelly has on some of his victims: “psychological entrapment.” Hughes testified that the long-term effects of abuse can “jumble together” people’s memories, making them act in ways that seem disingenuous. In March, 2019, Joy Savage appeared in an interview segment with Gayle King that aired on “CBS This Morning,” during which she and Jane Doe No. 5, who joined her for the taping, defended Kelly against the allegations that had been appearing about him in the news. (Jane Doe No. 5, who later broke up with Kelly, testified at the trial that she was dishonest in that interview.) Were Joy’s statements the result of psychological entrapment, or some other form of coercion? “I knew there was something going on when Joy talked to Gayle King,” Joy’s sister, Jailyn, told me. “It was kind of like she didn’t have no choice but to be on that interview and say what she said.”

Jailyn, who is twenty-one, was in her mid-teens when she last spent time with Joy. (The Savages also have a third daughter, Jori, who is fourteen years old.) The family said they are praying that they hear from Joy soon, now that Kelly will be going to prison. “He will be held accountable for what he’s done all these years,” Jonjelyn said, of the man who took her daughter from her. “But there’s no winners in this situation at all.”

R. Kelly Is Found Guilty on All Counts Twenty-five Years Too Late

Kirkus Reviews, the gold-standard for independent & accurate reviews, has this to say about

What Goes Around Comes Around:

A stable, positive, non preachy, objective voice makes the book stand apart from others in the genre. A successful guide that uses anecdotes to reveal powerful truths about life.

~ Kirkus Reviews

“The author gives readers not just points or principles to ponder, but real human experiences that demonstrate them!”

– Kirkus Reviews

“I’ve read a number of books that focus on sharing a similar message, including “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, “The Answer” by John Assaraf & Murray Smith, “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill, and I must say that I find Rob’s to be my favorite.” – Sheryl Woodhouse, founder of Livelihood Matters LLC

R. Kelly Is Found Guilty on All Counts Twenty-five Years Too Late

What is so easy to see in others, is so hard to see in ourselves!

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/r-kelly-is-found-guilty-on-all-counts-twenty-five-years-too-late?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker

R&B Superstar R. Kelly Convicted in Sex Trafficking Trial

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (TOM HAYS and LARRY NEUMEISTER) R&B Superstar R. Kelly Convicted

September 27, 2021, 8:04 AM PDT

New York (AP) — R. Kelly, the R&B superstar known for his anthem “I Believe I Can Fly,” was convicted Monday in a sex trafficking trial after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children.

A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly, 54, guilty of all nine counts, including racketeering, on their second day of deliberations. Kelly wore a face mask below black-rimmed glasses, remaining motionless with eyes downcast, as the verdict was read in federal court in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors alleged that the entourage of managers and aides who helped Kelly meet girls — and keep them obedient and quiet — amounted to a criminal enterprise. Two people have been charged with Kelly in a separate federal case pending in Chicago.

He faces the possibility of decades in prison for crimes including violating the Mann Act, an anti-sex trafficking law that prohibits taking anyone across state lines “for any immoral purpose.” Sentencing is scheduled for May 4.

One of Kelly’s lawyers, Deveraux Cannick, said he was disappointed and hoped to appeal.

“I think I’m even more disappointed the government brought the case in the first place, given all the inconsistencies,” Cannick said.

Several accusers testified in lurid detail during the trial, alleging that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.

For years, the public and news media seemed to be more amused than horrified by allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors, starting with Kelly’s illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15. R&B Superstar R. Kelly Convicted

His records and concert tickets kept selling. Other artists continued to record his songs, even after he was arrested in 2002 and accused of making a recording of himself sexually abusing and urinating on a 14-year-old girl.

Widespread public condemnation didn’t come until a widely watched docuseries, “Surviving R. Kelly,” helped make his case a signifier of the #MeToo era, and gave voice to accusers who wondered if their stories were previously ignored because they were Black women.

“To the victims in this case, your voices were heard and justice was finally served,” Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said Monday.

Gloria Allred, a lawyer for some of Kelly’s accusers, said outside the courthouse that of all the predators she’s gone after — a list including Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein — “Mr. Kelly is the worst.”

At the trial, several of Kelly’s accusers testified without using their real names to protect their privacy. Jurors were shown homemade videos of Kelly engaging in sex acts that prosecutors said were not consensual.

The defense labeled the accusers “groupies” and “stalkers.”

Kelly’s lawyer, Cannick, questioned why women stayed in relationships with Kelly if they thought they were being exploited.

“You made a choice,” Cannick told one woman who testified, adding, “You participated of your own will.”

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been jailed without bail since in 2019. The New York case is only part of the legal peril facing the singer. He also has pleaded not guilty to sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota. Trial dates in those cases have yet to be set.

At the trial, prosecutors painted the singer as a pampered man-child and control freak. His accusers said they were under orders to call him “Daddy,” expected to jump and kiss him anytime he walked into a room, and to cheer only for him when he played pickup basketball games in which they said he was a ball hog.

The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as “Rob’s rules.” Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.

Among the other more troubling tableaux: Kelly keeping a gun by his side while he berated one of his accusers as a prelude to forcing her to give him oral sex in a Los Angeles music studio; Kelly giving several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD; Kelly coercing a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage; and Kelly shooting a shaming video of one alleged victim showing her smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.

Of 14 possible racketeering acts considered in the trial, the jury found only two “not proven.” The allegations involved a woman who said Kelly took advantage of her in 2003 when she was an unsuspecting radio station intern. R&B Superstar R. Kelly Convicted

She testified he whisked her to his Chicago recording studio, where she was kept locked up and was drugged before he sexually assaulted her while she was passed out. When she realized she was trapped, “I was scared. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed,” she said.

Other testimony focused on Kelly’s relationship with Aaliyah. One of the final witnesses described seeing him sexually abusing her around 1993, when Aaliyah was only 13 or 14.

Jurors also heard testimony about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated Aaliyah. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.

Aaliyah, whose full name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton, worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.” She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.

Kelly had been tried once before, in Chicago in a child pornography case, but was acquitted in 2008.

For the Brooklyn trial, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly barred people not directly involved in the case from the courtroom in what she called a coronavirus precaution. Reporters and other spectators had to watch on a video feed from another room in the same building, though a few were allowed in the courtroom for the verdict.