R&B singer R. Kelly is appealing one of his two federal convictions. In September 2021 he took guilty verdicts on sex trafficking and racketeering charges in New York. He is seeking a reversal of that conviction, or a new trial. Attorneys argue at least four seated jurors were familiar with Kelly’s case stating that they had seen the documentary series about his accusations.

A New York federal court jury convicted him of one charge of racketeering and eight counts of violations of a sex trafficking law. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison. According to New York prosecutors, Kelly had a “network of people at his disposal to target girls, boys and young women for his own sexual gratification.”

Earlier this year, Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a Chicago federal on convictions of child pornography and enticement of a minor.

Attorneys argue that prosecutors “swamped the jury with excessive other bad act evidence”. So-called bad evidence includes medical documents that detail R. Kelly’s contraction and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases; his alleged mistreatment of employees; audio in which he allegedly both verbally and physically assaulted his girlfriend, as well as and “audio and video-recordings of this conduct with women and men, some of whom never testified.” After Kelly’s sentencing, the government seized nearly $28,000 from his trust account and was ordered to pay more than $360,000 in restitution to two separate women who claimed to have contracted herpes from Kelly.