R Kelly accusers share their delight after disgraced singer convicted of sex trafficking

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Accusers of R Kelly celebrated on Monday night after the disgraced star was convicted in Brooklyn federal court of multiple sex trafficking charges.

The R&B star, whose legal name is Robert Kelly, was found guilty of all nine counts, including racketeering based on sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping, forced labor, and other charges.

The guilty verdict was handed down after just nine hours of deliberations by a jury of seven men and five women at Brooklyn federal court on Monday, with those who took the stand against Kelly speaking of their relief.

Jerhonda Johnson Pace, 28, celebrated news of the verdict on her Instagram page on Monday. She posted a story on the app showing the caption: ‘Verdict? Guilty.’  

The singer Sparkle, whose real name is Stephanie Edwards, went public with allegations that R Kelly sexually assaulted her niece who was underage when she was filmed being assaulted and urinated on by the R&B star.

Edwards said she felt ‘vindicated’ having been one of the first to come forward with accusations against Kelly – a sentiment that was also shared by the producers of the 2019 ‘Surviving R Kelly’ documentary.

Another woman who took the stand, identified only as Sonja, told the Daily Beast that she was ‘happy with the verdict and thankful that the jury listened to us.’

Another R Kelly accuser, Kitti Jones, also celebrated a ‘small victory’ on Monday, although her claims did not form part of the case against Kelly. 

The 54-year-old Kelly faces up to 100 years in prison – 20 years for racketeering, 10 for each of the sex trafficking convictions. Sentencing is expected to take place on May 4, 2022. 

Kelly has remained in custody after being denied bail in his New York City case in October 2019, and after prosecutors accused the R&B singer of exploiting his stardom over a quarter-century to lure women and underage girls for sex.  

Pace, who accused R Kelly of forcing her to perform oral sex on him when she was just 16 years old, also posted an image to her timeline showing a graphic that read: ‘Today, my voice was heard.’ 

‘G U I L T Y,’ she wrote in the caption of the post.

‘Today the jury found R. Kelly guilty. For years, I was trolled for speaking out about the abuse that I suffered at the hands of that predator,’ Pace wrote on Monday.

‘People called me a liar and said I had no proof. Some even said I was speaking out for money.

‘Speaking out about abuse is not easy, especially when your abuser is high-profile.

‘However, I DID IT.’ 

Pace said her coming forward ’caused a domino effect and so many people came forward.’

‘There are still some people that haven’t came forward. I’m so grateful to be a voice for those who didn’t have the courage,’ she wrote.

‘I’m thankful to stand with those who were brave enough to speak up.

‘I’m happy to FINALLY close this chapter of my life. I testified and the jury found him guilty.

‘No matter what you think of me or how you feel about things; today, I MADE HISTORY.

‘I wanna see you be brave.’

Pace also posted a photo of Joycelyn Savage, who lived with R Kelly for years as one of his girlfriends and who publicly came out in support of the disgraced singer even as her family pleaded with her to come home.

‘Still hopeful that she will go back home to her family,’ Pace wrote of Savage on Monday. 

‘She may not realize it now, but she also survived R. Kelly.’

Another woman who took the stand, identified only as Sonja, shared her delight at Kelly’s conviction with the Daily Beast.

She said she was ‘happy with the verdict and thankful that the jury listened to us.’

‘I’ve been hiding from Robert Kelly in fear, due to threats made against me, and I’m ready to start living my life free from fear, and to start the healing process,’ Sonja said.

The singer Sparkle, whose real name is Stephanie Edwards, knew R Kelly after he produced her first album. In 1997, she introduced her than-12-year-old niece to Kelly in the hope that he would help her aspiring rap career.

But in 2001 she saw the infamous video in which R Kelly is seen having sex with – and also urinating on – her niece. Edwards then called the police.

A year later, she gave a radio interview in which she went public with the allegation. In 2008, she also testified at R Kelly’s trial after he was charged with child pornography. He was eventually acquitted.

In 2019, Edwards was one of the women featured in the Lifetime documentary Surviving R Kelly.  

She told The Cut on Monday that she wept after hearing of the verdict. She said her niece’s family has not spoken to her in more than a decade.

Edwards said she now feels vindicated after she was among the first to accuse Kelly of sex crimes at a time when few believed her.

‘At the first trial, nobody believed me,’ she told The Cut.

‘I hope all the girls, boys, and women affected by him are also breathing a sigh of relief.’

She added: ‘I was the Lone Ranger at first, and now I have my riders behind me.’ 

Edwards said that her niece has not been in contact with her since she went public with the allegation. The niece and her immediate family are believed to have been paid some $2million to keep quiet about the incident.

Several of R Kelly’s alleged underage victims were paid in similar fashion, it is believed.

‘We’re not in contact, but I’m definitely thinking of her and hoping that she’s okay,’ Edwards said of her niece.

‘Even if she doesn’t feel the same about me. I’m thinking of her first and then of all the others who were affected.’ 

She described to The Cut how her family reacted when she made them aware of the infamous tape.

‘I called my family, and initially my niece’s parents wanted to see it,’ Edwards said.

‘Then they changed their minds and stopped responding to me. Our relationship was done. Finito.’ 

She added: ‘I’m assuming Robert had gotten to them, but I’ll never really know what happened. 

‘So I called the police. They took my statement, and then basically told me their hands were tied if my sister and brother-in-law didn’t want to speak. 

‘I was trying to grasp, ‘How are you guys not getting this? This person has violated your 14-year-old daughter. Where are you guys?’ 

‘I have five siblings and except for one brother, there was basically no more communication with most of my family for the next ten years.’ 

Last month, Pace took the witness stand and testified against Kelly at his trial.

She recalled how he struck up a relationship with her after meeting at his 2008 child pornography trial. Pace was just 14 years of age at the time.

Pace testified that she first met Kelly when she was just 14-years-old when she attended every day of his 2008 child pornography trial, in which he was found not guilty due to lack of sufficient evidence.

When Pace was 16 she said she went to a party and met up with Kelly, claiming she was 19-years-old.

She said Kelly remembered her from court and invited her back to his mansion a few days later where he told her to put on her swimsuit while he sat on a lounge chair and for her to walk back and forth while removing her swimsuit.

She said the two then began kissing and he performed oral sex on her but she ‘felt uncomfortable’ lying about her age, so she told him she was actually 16 and showed him her state ID as proof, and Kelly asked ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Buzzfeed News reported. 

Pace said Kelly told her to keep saying she was 19 and ‘act 21’ and that he ‘was going to train me on how to please him sexually.’

When she told him she was a virgin, she said Kelly responded ‘that’s good’ and told her to lie about her age to other people.

Pace said she continued to see and have sex with Kelly over the next several months and that Kelly would often film their encounters.  

He also allegedly made Pace follow a strict set of rules, including making her wear baggy clothes, having her call him ‘Daddy,’ and forbidding her from eating food or using the bathroom without his permission, Buzzfeed reported.

Pace said she was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and a letter full of false admissions that claimed she had stolen money and jewelry from him, which prosecutors allege was a form of blackmail by Kelly.

Pace said she normally abided by Kelly’s rules, but when she didn’t he would be punished.

She testified about an incident when she said she preferred the Cleveland Cavaliers to Kelly’s favorite team, the Chicago Bulls and he allegedly backhanded her across the face and told her she was being disrespectful.

In another instance, Pace said Kelly wanted her to use a sex toy on him while they had sex, and she hesitated, telling him she was ‘taught that was gay,’ and he slapped her in the face, telling her ‘I’m not f**king gay,’ before making her give him oral sex while using the sex toy on him.

On the final day she spent in Kelly’s house in 2010, Pace said she was distracted and didn’t immediately acknowledge Kelly’s presence when he entered and Kelly slapped her and choked her until she passed out. ‘

After that he spat in her face and told her to put her head down in shame before making her perform oral sex on him.

Pace said Kelly ejaculated on her face and she wiped Kelly’s spit and semen on a blue T-shirt that was presented in court Wednesday as evidence.

Pace said after that incident she made up an excuse to leave the mansion and never returned.

Pace was also one of several women who spoke in detail in a harrowing 2019 Lifetime documentary, ‘Surviving R. Kelly,’ about the mental and sexual abuse they suffered from the singer. The documentary was the catalyst in the opening of an investigation that led to criminal charges against the singer in Chicago and New York.

Dream Hampton, the executive producer of the documentary, said on Twitter on Monday that she was ‘grateful to the survivors. The ones who talked and the ones who didn’t.’ 

Another R Kelly accuser, Kitti Jones, also celebrated a ‘small victory’ on Monday, although her claims did not form part of the case against Kelly. 

Prosecutors say Robert Sylvester Kelly, 54, ran a Chicago-based criminal enterprise for nearly three decades and that he used to ‘target, groom and exploit girls, boys and women’ for unwanted sex and mental torment.

The witnesses said Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The acts presented during disturbing testimony included bribery, kidnapping, forced labor rape, druggings, imprisonment and child pornography.    

Jones is the former Dallas radio DJ who gave up her career to be with R Kelly before the pop singer physically and sexually abused her for two years.

‘We got justice today,’ Jones, who did not take the witness stand, told The Daily Beast.

‘I wouldn’t say I now have closure, because in the end none of us will get our time back. But this is a small victory.’

Jones accused Kelly of physically abusing her and forcing her to have sex with other women. 

Kelly has denied the allegations. Jones’ accusations did not factor into the trial.

Nonetheless, Jones said she was pleased with the result.

‘Twelve people who had no connection to any of us and probably didn’t watch or follow our stories individually had an open mind and listened and took our side,’ Jones said.

‘I allowed myself a few hours to get my tears out today – and now I am just celebrating this win.

‘But we have a long way to go, this isn’t over.’

Jones told Rolling Stone in 2017 that she met Kelly in 2011 at an after-party for a concert in Dallas – and that the two quickly began texting regularly.

About two months later, she claims that Kelly paid for the Dallas-based radio DJ to visit him in Denver. Almost as soon as she arrived, Jones said he immediately started masturbating in front of her.

Later that year she said she began falling for Kelly and left her job to move in with him in Chicago.

But several months later, she says she became suicidal after she endured abuse from the singer.

Jones says Kelly had made references to having ‘raised’ other women, but didn’t tell her that he was in relationships with them – which she alleges that he was.

Nearly as soon as she uprooted her whole life, Jones claims that Kelly started to enforce strict rules similar to those that other women have alleged.

She said he forced her to wear baggy sweatpants and became controlling – making her update him on her whereabouts constantly.

In November of 2011, less than year after the two first met, she said he became abusive.

‘He would start kicking me, telling me I was a stupid b**** [and] don’t ever get in his business,’ she told Rolling Stone.

Soon after that, she recalled that Kelly moved her into his recording studio with two of his other girlfriends. There, she says he went to great lengths to ensure the three women never found out about each other.

‘If you disclose your relationship with him [to another woman] – how long you’ve known him or whatever – you can get beat,’ Jones alleged.

‘He doesn’t want in any way for one girl to feel more like ‘Oh we’re close than you guys.’ Even though we knew deep down we’re all living there, we didn’t address it.’

Jones said he often took away her phone or starved her as a punishment if she didn’t follow his strict orders.

Then, in 2013, things took a turn for the worse.

Jones claims that in March of that year Kelly brought another of his girlfriends over to where he was keeping her and forced her to perform oral sex on Jones.

‘He told me, ‘I raised her. I’ve trained this b****. This is my pet,” she told Rolling Stone.

Around that time she claims Kelly also started forcing her to have intercourse with other women – and says he would threaten her if she said no.

Jones described that period as ‘six months of hell,’ and said that as it came to an end she found herself contemplating suicide.

‘If I wasn’t getting slapped, I wasn’t eating or my phone was gone,’ she claims.

‘I just said, ‘I’m gonna kill myself and it’s gonna be his fault. I can either kill myself or kill him. What use am I when I walk out of here?”

So finally, at her lowest point, she claims she finally left Kelly’s clutches on an afternoon she told him she was taking her son shopping in Dallas.  

 

Kelly’s music has largely disappeared from radio but is still available on streaming platforms. His hit record ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ was for years a popular choice at graduation ceremonies.

His supporters include a hardcore group of fans, derisively dubbed the ‘peehive’ on social media, who showed their dismay outside the court in Brooklyn and under the Twitter hashtag #FreeRKelly.

Some in Brooklyn cried as the verdict was read and one supporter defiantly played his song ‘Shut Up.’

‘They don’t wanna see a Black man winning,’ wrote a poster on Twitter called Zapac Zhakur under the hashtag #FreeRKelly.

Kelly, now 54, was dropped by his record company RCA in early 2019, shortly after the Lifetime documentary was aired.

After the documentary was broadcast, some of the musicians who had previously collaborated with him, including Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and Chance the Rapper, issued apologies or asked for those recordings to be taken down from streaming services.

But most of his songs and albums are still available for streaming and the RKelly TV YouTube channel has 3.5 million subscribers.

Data from music tracking service MRC showed that streams had remained largely steady between 2017 and 2021, at about 5 million to 6 million a week.

Music publication Billboard reported last month that Kelly, whose last album was released in 2016, was trying to sell the rights to his back catalog but had yet to find a buyer.

Merck Mercuriadis, whose Hipgnosis Songs Fund has recently bought the rights to songs from the likes of Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, said he was not interested.

‘We have no interest in the R Kelly catalog. There is a strong principle here of supporting the feelings and beliefs of our songwriting community – both women and men – that is more important than economic opportunity,’ Mercuriadis said in a statement on Monday.