Faith Rodgers, one of R. Kelly’s alleged victims, has spoken out following his conviction last month in the singer’s federal sex crimes case in Brooklyn.
Rodgers is not confident the embattled artist can be rehabilitated and she has rejected the idea that Kelly’s conviction will be overturned.
“It won’t happen,” she recently told a TMZ photog outside The Ivy in Beverly Hills.
Accompanied by her attorney Gloria Allred, Rodgers also noted that unless R. Kelly takes accountability for his actions, there’s no chance for rehabilitation.
Rodgers spoke to reporters at a press conference on Friday where she was asked if she wanted an apology from Kelly.
“The apology is his conviction,” Rodgers told reporters in Los Angeles.
Kelly was convicted on September 27 on all nine charges in his racketeering and sex trafficking federal trial in Brooklyn, theGRIO reported.
During the six-week trial, Kelly stood accused of being the mastermind of a scheme to recruit young girls and abuse them sexually and physically. The “I Believe I Can Fly” singer was charged with eight counts of violating the Mann Act, an anti-sex-trafficking statute, and one count of racketeering.
Kelly, 54, pled not guilty to all the counts against him and chose not to testify in his own defense. He was described as not showing much emotion as the verdict was read. He is now facing a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. Sentencing will be on May 4, 2022.
Following the guilty verdict, Bill Cosby, through his spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, told TMZ that R. Kelly had been “railroaded”.
“Based on the evidence admitted at trial, the jury, after nine hours of deliberation, decided that R. Kelly was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that he should be convicted,” Allred told reporters at the press conference she hosted on Friday.
“R. Kelly did receive a fair trial,” Rodgers added. “He was not railroaded.”
Rodgers, 24, filed a lawsuit against Kelly in 2018, accusing the singer of sexual battery, false imprisonment, and “willfully, deliberately and maliciously” infecting her with an STD, theGRIO previously reported. Allred said during a press conference in Jan. 2019 that Kelly responded to the lawsuit by posting private photos of Rodgers without her consent on social media and sending a letter to another attorney threatening to reveal his and Rodgers’ personal correspondence and to provide witnesses to speak about Rodgers’ sexual activity.
The photos were shared on a Facebook page called “Surviving Lies,” which was created by Kelly’s supporters to discredit his accusers in response to the Surviving R. Kelly Lifetime documentary. Facebook deleted the page several hours after it was created after photos of Rodgers and one other unnamed Kelly accuser were posted.
Rodgers was 19 when she first met Kelly, though Allred alleged that “whether or not someone was an adult is irrelevant if, in fact, that person has evidence that they were abused.”
“What I would like to see, at least by that time, is a little bit of remorse and accountability,” Rodgers said at Friday’s press conference in Los Angeles.
This article contains additional reporting from theGRIO’s Stephanie Guerilus.
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