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Finally, after almost 30 years of his crimes being common knowledge in the music industry and beyond, R. Kelly has been found guilty.

The disgraced singer was found guilty on all nine of the counts he faced, with the jury ruling that he was the ringleader of a racketeering and sex trafficking scheme that preyed upon women and children.

He will be sentenced on May 4 and faces between 10 years and life in prison.

You don’t need to have watched Surviving R. Kelly or the sequel to hope for the latter.

During the trial, witnesses recounted the horrors they were subjected to or witnessed, but some of the testimonies were particularly important in convincing the jury.

The Guardian has run through five that stand out.

A former tour manager for Kelly told the court that he paid a $500 bribe to a government worker to get the singer Aaliyah a fake ID, so Kelly could marry her when she was 15.

Demetrius Smith said he had paid an employee at a Chicago welfare office to produce the card, used to clear the way for Kelly to marry Aaliyah after he began a sexual relationship with her and believed she had become pregnant.

A marriage license put into evidence falsely listed her age as 18. Kelly was 27 at the time.

Another witness said she had seen Kelly sexually abusing Aaliyah in 1993. At that time, she would have been 13 or 14.

It’s been alleged that he married Aaliyah so that she wouldn’t testify against him.

Jerhonda Pace, a key accuser, described being choked unconscious by R Kelly after she broke “Rob’s rules”, which included the singer controlling what she ate, wore and whether she could use the bathroom.

At that time, she was 16.

One witness testified that Kelly had beaten her with a shoe, and wept as she said she had contracted herpes after having sex with him.

The woman, identified only as “Jane Doe”, said she was 17 when the abuse took place in 2015. She said she met Kelly while he was performing on a tour. She told him she was an aspiring performer and lied about her age, saying she was 18…

The witness was one of several who said they had contracted herpes after having sex with Kelly. “This man purposely gave me something he knew he had,” she said. “He could have controlled the situation.”

When she confronted Kelly about contracting the disease, he allegedly responded by saying “I think your pussy is broken.”

The court heard that Kelly forced women to write fake letters, detailing how they had been abused by family members or committed crimes, to ensure their loyalty to the singer.

The witness also said Kelly had forced her to film degrading videos as punishment, including one where she was told to smear feces on her face and “put it in my mouth and act like I liked, enjoyed that”.

These allegations were backed up by another witness.

One woman described Kelly as a “controlling and intimidating” man who “could put the fear of God in me very quickly”, as she described a relationship she had with Kelly in 1999, when she was 17 and he was 32.

She said Kelly mused to his friends about why it was a “big deal” to people that he “liked young girls”. Stephanie said Kelly compared himself to the singer Jerry Lee Lewis, who married a 13-year-old cousin.

“I’m a genius. We should be able to do what we want,” Kelly said, according to Stephanie.

It also didn’t help that many of Kelly’s former staff turned against him, with prosecutors managing to get close associates to ‘flip’ and validate the accounts put forward by multiple women.

Kelly’s defence team will likely appeal the guilty verdict, but his legal woes are far from over.

He will also face sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota. Trial dates in those cases have yet to be set, and Kelly has pleaded not guilty.

It may be decades overdue, but we’re finally seeing some form of justice being served.

[source:guardian]