The disgraced 59-year-old music artist, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was convicted of federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in New York in September 2021. <\/p>\n
After years in prison, Kelly\u2019s attorneys have submitted a request for a commutation of his sentence to the Justice Department\u2019s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which was made public this week. <\/p>\n
The request, which was first reported by the Chicago Tribune<\/a>, remains pending. <\/p>\n A White House official told The Independent that the request appears to be merely a random submission through a public portal that anyone can access. <\/p>\n The official said the White House team that reviews clemency requests is not tracking Kelly\u2019s submission at this time. The official added that the review process is thorough and Trump ultimately decides who is granted clemency. <\/p>\n Kelly, a Chicago-born star who shot to fame during the 1990s, was plagued by accusations of sexual misconduct by the early 2000s. <\/p>\n The full extent of Kelly\u2019s crimes came to light during a six-week trial in Brooklyn, where jurors found him guilty of nine counts, including sexual exploitation of children, forced labor and violations of the Mann Act, which makes it illegal to transport women across state lines for illegal sexual activity. <\/p>\n When Kelly was sentenced in June 2022, Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said, \u201cR. Kelly used his fame, fortune and enablers to prey on the young, the vulnerable and the voiceless for his own sexual gratification, while many turned a blind eye.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith today\u2019s sentence he has finally and appropriately been held accountable for his decades of abuse, exploitation and degradation of teenagers and other vulnerable young people,\u201d Peace added. <\/p>\n A year ago, Kelly\u2019s attorney, Beau Brindley, made a public plea to Trump to free the singer from prison. <\/p>\n “We are seeking a conversation with the president, because R. Kelly does not have the time, with his life in danger, to go through the normal channels,” Brindley said at a June 2025 press conference. <\/p>\n Brindley had claimed authorities were plotting to steal Kelly\u2019s mail to turn witnesses against him and then have a white supremacist kill him in prison. <\/p>\n Kelly\u2019s attorney has also gone down a different legal avenue to get his client out of prison. He\u2019s seeking a new trial in Chicago, alleging that prosecutors tainted Kelly\u2019s conviction by conspiring to steal the singer\u2019s mail in prison, the Chicago Tribune reported. <\/p>\n \u201cVague, conclusory allegations are insufficient to warrant a hearing,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Walgamuth for the Northern District of Illinois wrote in a court filing last month, according to the outlet. <\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear whether Trump will grant Kelly\u2019s clemency request. The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment. <\/p>\n During the May 2025 trial for Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs<\/a>, who was accused of sex crimes, Trump was asked whether he\u2019d pardon the rap mogul<\/a> if he was convicted. <\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, I\u2019d look at what\u2019s happening, and I haven\u2019t been watching it too closely\u2026I haven\u2019t seen him. I haven\u2019t spoken to him in years,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n \u201cIf I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don\u2019t like me, it wouldn\u2019t have any impact on me,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Combs was subsequently found guilty by a Manhattan jury <\/a>of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, but acquitted of more serious charges, including racketeering and sex trafficking. He was sentenced to about four years in prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-694394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"R&B](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1168898276.jpg\")
R&B singer R. Kelly has officially asked President Donald Trump to end his 30-year prison sentence for sex crimes (Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1158464164.jpg\")
The disgraced music artist was convicted of federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in New York in September 2021 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286076267.jpg\")
A year ago, Kelly\u2019s attorney, Beau Brindley, made a public plea to Trump to free the singer from prison (Getty Images)<\/p>\n