R. Kelly is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his convictions for youngster pornography and enticement.

RELATED: R. Kelly Reveals He “Cannot Read Or Understand Words” Beyond Grade-School Level In New Court Filing

Kelly Challenges Conviction

According to Billboard, R. Kelly claims that his case ought to fall underneath the statute of limitations. The outlet reviews that R. Kelly’s lawyer filed a petition on July 29 asking the excessive court docket to dismiss an April ruling that denied him aid from his 2022 convictions.

R. Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, advised TMZ that the 2003 federal legislation extending the statute of limitations can’t apply retroactively to his alleged crimes from the Nineties. PEOPLE reviews that Bonjean acknowledged Congress didn’t explicitly embody a clause making this legislation relevant to crimes dedicated earlier than 2003.

“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,” learn the petition.

For context, Kelly’s workforce claims that the statute of limitations window has closed. However, prosecutors dispute this, citing the PROTECT ACT — a 2003 legislation that established an indefinite interval for intercourse crimes towards kids.

Per PEOPLE, though Kelly’s workforce petitioned for an attraction, the Supreme Court can select to not hear his case.

However, Billboard notes that, like all appeals to the Supreme Court, R. Kelly’s case faces vital challenges. The excessive court docket receives hundreds of petitions yearly however solely agrees to listen to a small share.

In an announcement to the Associated Press, Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, argued that charging him with main the RICO enterprise from 1994 to 2018 was unfair, because it concerned people selling his music and recruiting girls and ladies for unlawful sexual exercise.

“This was not a collection of people who had a purpose to recruit girls for sexual abuse or child pornography. Whether they turned a blind eye, whether some of them suspected that some of these girls were underage, that’s a whole different matter.”

Bonjean claimed that if R. confronted expenses for this matter, it will set a precedent for different organizations to be labeled as RICO enterprises.

“And once we get into that sort of territory, where we’re going to say that constitutes a RICO enterprise, well we have a lot of organizations — we have a lot of frat houses — we have all types of organizations that are now going to become RICO enterprises,” she added.

More Details On R. Kelly’s Case & Trial

This week’s petition addresses simply one among R. Kelly’s two felony abuse convictions. The different conviction, a September 2021 responsible verdict for racketeering expenses from New York prosecutors, led to a 30-year jail sentence and is at the moment underneath attraction in a decrease appellate court docket.

Yahoo reviews that R. Kelly, whose full identify is Robert Sylvester Kelly, is at the moment serving a 30-year sentence in a federal jail.

Per CNN, the R&B musician’s sentence arises from a intercourse trafficking conviction in New York in September 2021.

In 2022, CNN revealed that R. obtained a further 20-year sentence in federal jail following a second conviction in his hometown of Chicago. He confronted a number of counts associated to the manufacturing of kid pornography and attractive a minor to interact in legal sexual exercise. This new time period was imposed whereas he was already serving his preliminary 30-year sentence.

RELATED: R. Kelly Is Appealing His September 2021 Guilty Verdicts On Sex Trafficking, Racketeering Charges