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Artist News Legal
R Kelly’s lawyer argues for acquittal or retrial in New York sex abuse case
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 18 February 2022
R Kelly’s new lawyer filed legal papers with the courts in New York yesterday seeking to have the musician acquitted or retried in relation to his conviction last year on charges of racketeering and sexual exploitation. Among the reasons given for acquittal or retrial are the failings of Kelly’s former legal team.
At trial last September, Kelly was found guilty of building and running a criminal enterprise that allowed him to prolifically groom and abuse young people, often teenagers. He was convicted of all the charges against him and faces ten years to life in prison.
The musician has now hired the services of Jennifer Bonjean, who was behind Bill Cosby’s successful appeal of his own sexual assault conviction. She filed papers yesterday setting out arguments for why her client should have a retrial – or simply be acquitted.
According to Rolling Stone, in arguing for a retrial, Bonjean claims that Kelly was denied his rights under the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution in the original trial, in particular in relation to the impartiality of the jury.
This was caused by the weakness of his previous legal team, Bonjean says, who did not effectively assess potential jurors and challenge unqualified jurors. For example, she argues, some jurors had seen the docuseries ‘Surviving R Kelly’ or knew about the past allegations of sexual abuse against teenagers that had been made against Kelly, resulting in a jury that “was neither fair nor impartial”.
Though finding twelve Americans completely oblivious of at least some of the allegations that had been made against Kelly over the years would probably had been a major task.
Bonjean also brings up a conflict of interest claim that was made in relation to one of Kelly’s former lawyers, Nicole Blank Becker. That was based on an allegations that Becker had previously given legal advice to one of Kelly’s girlfriends, who subsequently split from the musician and later began cooperating with the prosecution.
That potential conflict was brought up before Kelly’s trial, with Becker denying she ever gave formal legal advice to the woman in question. Kelly said the potential conflict didn’t bother him at the time, but Bonjean now says that it was, in fact, an “unwaivable conflict” and the failure to address said conflict at the time is another reason for a retrial.
As for the arguments in favour of acquittal, Bonjean reckons that the prosecution never actually proved her client established a criminal enterprise to groom and abuse young people, and therefore the charges of racketeering were not proven, and likewise there was insufficient evidence to back up the other crimes he was accused of.
It remains to be seen how the judge in New York responds. Meanwhile, there’s the matter of the separate trial Kelly is facing in Chicago, also in relation to allegations of sexual abuse against young people, although without any racketeering charges.
Kelly has now appointed Bonjean to lead on that case too. Until recently his legal reps in Chicago were still Steve Greenberg and Michael Leonard. They were also originally key members of Kelly’s defence team in New York, but stopped working on that case before his trial, seemingly because of disagreements with other members of the musician’s legal team, including Becker.
According to the Chicago Tribune, during a call with the court on Wednesday, Kelly was asked by the judge overseeing the Chicago case if he was parting ways with Greenberg and Leonard in favour of Bonjean. He told the judge, simply, “that’s correct, your honour”.
