Prosecuters have recommended that R. Kelly is sentenced to more than 25 years in prison in a new court filing.
The R&B singer (real name Robert Sylvester Kelly) was convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering offences last year and was due to be formally sentenced last month before the hearing was delayed until June 29.
Now in a new filing via the New York Post, prosecutors have called for the singer to be jailed for more than 25 years.
“In light of the seriousness of the offences, the need for specific deterrence and the need to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant, the government respectfully submits that a sentence in excess of 25 years is warraned,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York wrote to the judge in the case.
The US Attorney’s Office also said the singer relied “on his fame, money and popularity as an R&B recording star… to both carry and conceal his crimes”.
“He continued his crimes and avoided punishment for them for almost 30 years and must now be held to account,” prosecutors added.
The 31-page filing details allegations of “callous disregard” he showed his victims during his decades of abuse and sexual exploitation, warning that Kelly “is unlikely to be deterred from further sexually abusing and exploiting children and others.”
But R. Kelly’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, argued that he should be sentenced to fewer than 14 years in prison.
She is set to explain why his “history and characteristics” justify the shorter sentence in a filing next Monday (June 13).
The latest motion comes after the singer tried to delay sentencing for his sex trafficking and racketeering convictions in April.