NEW YORK — Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly says he’s a victim of the #MeToo movement and wants a New York appeals court to toss his Brooklyn conviction or give him a new trial.
Kelly says his Brooklyn case that resulted in his 30-year sentence should be retried based on jurors who admitted seeing “Surviving R Kelly,” the docuseries that brought rampant sexual abuse allegations to light, among other arguments.
“Galvanized by an influential social movement determined to punish centuries of male misbehavior through symbolic prosecutions of high-profile men, the government brought a [federal racketeering] prosecution against the Defendant that was ‘absurdly remote’ from the drafters’ intent,” reads the brief filed this week by Kelly’s attorneys.
