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Supreme Court rebuffs effort by R. Kelly to overturn conviction

R. Kelly pleaded not guilty to a new indictment before Judge Lawrence Flood at Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago, Ill. on Thursday, June 6, 2019. E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty Images

R. Kelly pleaded not guilty to a new indictment before Judge Lawrence Flood at Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago, Ill. on Thursday, June 6, 2019. E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty Images

CNN — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from the recording artist R. Kelly, who claimed prosecutors “stretched” the law in securing racketeering and sex trafficking convictions against him.

Robert Sylvester Kelly is serving a 30-year sentence for those convictions.

Kelly, a Grammy-winning R&B songwriter, was convicted under the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, often associated with efforts to take down the Mafia but that can also give prosecutors the ability to seek higher sentences in different types of cases.

Kelly’s defense attorneys told the Supreme Court that prosectors “stretched” the use of the act in how they defined the term “enterprise.” An enterprise for the purposes of RICO, Kelly told the high court, only exists if its members share a common purpose to engage in illegal conduct.

“To hold otherwise would mean that any rogue bad actor operating within a legal organization could be prosecuted under RICO as occurred here,” Kelly’s lawyer argued. “This scenario stretches the RICO statute beyond and contrary to its purpose.”

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled against Kelly in February and he appealed to the Supreme Court in May. Federal prosectors declined to respond. As is its usual practice, the Supreme Court did not explain its decision to deny the appeal.

The justices turned away another appeal from Kelly in the fall. In that case, Kelly had argued that he was wrongly retroactively prosecuted under a federal law that passed in 2003 and made the statute of limitations indefinite for sex crimes with minors.

Author: John Fritze, CNN

Source: CNN:::

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