In a last-ditch bid to escape receiving a life sentence from a federal court later this month, R. Kelly has denied "using" the late singer Aaliyah in a bribery scheme that led to their 1994 illegal marriage. His legal team denied the singer has gotten her a fake ID, or being the person behind that ruse, so Aaliyah can marry despite being just 15.
On Monday, just two weeks before the disgraced singer, age 55, is slated to be sentenced for his sex crimes against minors R. Kelly's attorney asked the federal court handling the case to be lenient and sentence the singer to just between 14 and 17.5 years. This length of time for being jailed can hardly be described as short, but it's considerably shorter than life imprisonment.
In her attempt to convince the court that the singer should not be facing life, Jennifer Bonjean, R. Kelly's attorney, denied the allegations against the singer in connection to getting the fabricated identification card obtained by R. Kelly's tour manager so the singer would not be jailed forever, given his already grave crimes involving minors.
"The government's evidence failed to show that Defendant knew that Demetrius Smith paid money to influence a public aid officer to produce an identification card for Aaliyah," Bonjean told the federal judge, as Radar Online reported, based on some recently obtained court documents.
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"The record is also devoid of any evidence that Defendant used Aaliyah in connection with the bribery. Of course, the bribery committed by Smith produced a fraudulent public aid card for Aaliyah. But it does not follow that Defendant used Aaliyah in the bribery," Bonjean added.
On September 27, 2021, a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, found R. Kelly guilty on all nine counts of racketeering charges and violations of the Mann Act, as reported by RadarOnline.com.
The jury found the "I Believe I Can Fly" singer guilty of a decades-long plot including the use of "inner circle" friends and workers to recruit "women and girls to engage in criminal sexual behavior" with him.
Aaliyah perished in a plane crash in August 2001 at the age of 22.
Smith, R. Kelly's tour manager who obtained the fake ID card for Aaliyah, previously claimed that the singer was "concerned" that Aaliyah was pregnant with his child and that he wanted the marriage to "protect himself" and "to protect Aaliyah" from having to testify against him if he ever went to trial for his crimes.
Smith stated in an interview for the 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly: "R. Kelly said, 'Man, we got Aaliyah in trouble.'"
"He informed me, 'I believe she's pregnant'..."
That broke my heart - I was so disappointed in him," he continued. "I really believed him when he said he wasn't messing with Aaliyah because I questioned him. I was lost for words."
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