R. Kelly petitions Supreme Court to throw out sex crime convictions

Attorneys for R&B singer R. Kelly filed an appeal to his federal sex crimes conviction with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, arguing his conviction should be tossed over the statute of limitations.

Kelly, who is already serving a 30-year sentence for sex trafficking from a 2021 North Carolina case, was also convicted in 2022 of producing child pornography, adding a simultaneous 20-year sentence. Tuesday’s appeal applies to the federal child pornography case tried in Chicago.

The singer was prosecuted using the PROTECT Act, a 2003 law which expanded the federal statute of limitations for sex crimes involving minors. Kelly’s attorneys argued that because his alleged actions occurred in the 1990s, before the law was passed, the statute of limitations should have expired.

“Defendant’s charges were time barred,” the petition for certiorari reads. “Because Congress did not expressly state that the PROTECT Act should apply retroactivity and even rejected a version of the bill that included a retroactive provision, the PROTECT Act did not extend the statute of limitations and Defendant was convicted of time-barred offenses.” 

Kelly previously appealed the conviction using the same argument in a lower federal court, but that appeal was rejected at both the district and appellate level.

The Supreme Court hears few of the cases it is offered each year. If the court accepts to hear the case, it would be tried in its session beginning in October.