Copyright 2024 Patriot Mom Digest
On Tuesday, according to the Associated Press, a judge dismissed sex-abuse charges against R&B singer, R. Kelly, based on the recommendation of Chicago prosecutor State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Reportedly, the hearing that lasted just minutes, came a day after Cook County State’s Attorney Foxx said she was comfortable dropping the case, because Kelly will spend decades in prison for separate convictions in federal court.
Charged with sexually abusing four people in the Chicago area, three of whom were minors, Kelly who was awaiting trial, was not present when Judge Lawrence Flood dismissed the indictments. Already convicted of a raft of crimes, including enticement, racketeering, child pornography, and sex trafficking related to allegations that he victimized women and girls, Kelly continued to await trial on the abuse charges, until they were dismissed this week.
Born Robert Sylvester Kelly, “R. Kelly”, is serving a 30-year prison sentence in the New York case and awaits sentencing on Feb. 23 in Chicago federal court. According to Fox News some of Kelly’s accusers are struggling with the judge’s decision. Lanita Carter, one of Kelly’s victims stated-
[justice was] “denied for me.”…“I have spent nearly 20 years hoping that my abuser would be brought to justice for what he did to me,”
-Lanita Carter
Until the #MeToo reckoning and the 2019 release of the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,”
widespread outrage, over Kelly’s sexual misconduct, didn’t emerge. Kelly sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. Further, he beat child pornography charges in Chicago in 2008, when a jury acquitted him.
There is still another sexual-misconduct case, pending in Hennepin County, Minnesota, where Kelly faces solicitation charges. Prosecutors there have not clearly said whether they still intend to take Kelly to trial. Time will tell. Hopefully, Mr. Kelly will never be allowed to see his freedom, while his victims still breath. His victims deserve that.
“For too long, the victims of crime have been the forgotten persons of our criminal justice system. Rarely do we give victims the help they need or the attention they deserve. Yet the protection of our citizens – to guard them from becoming victims – is the primary purpose of our penal laws. Thus, each new victim personally represents an instance in which our system has failed to prevent crime. Lack of concern for victims compounds that failure.”
-President Ronald W. Reagan