R. Kelly asks President Trump to commute his prison sentence for sex abuse
By Sara Tenenbaum
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CHICAGO (WBBM) — Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly has asked President Donald Trump to commute his 30-year prison sentence for sex abuse.
Attorneys for the singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, submitted the request for a commutation of sentence to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice this year. It is currently listed on the office’s website as “pending.”
Kelly was sentenced to 30 years after being convicted of federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in New York in 2021 and of child pornography charges in 2022 in Chicago. He is serving his prison sentence in North Carolina.
In 2025, Kelly’s attorney asked the president to set hm free from prison, accusing federal authorities of plotting to steal his mail to pressure witnesses to testify against him and later recruiting a white supremacist to kill him in prison.
If Kelly’s sentence is not commuted, he is expected to be released from prison in 2045 when he’s nearly 79 years old.
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