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Supreme Court rebuffs effort by R. Kelly to overturn conviction

Kelly’s defense argued that the RICO Act was misapplied in his case, claiming the definition of "enterprise" was stretched.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from the recording artist R. Kelly, who claimed prosecutors "stretched" the law in securing racketeering and sex trafficking convictions against him. Kelly, a Grammy-winning R&B songwriter, was convicted under the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, often associated with efforts to take down the Mafia but that can also give prosecutors the ability to seek higher sentences in different types of cases. In that case, Kelly had argued that he was wrongly retroactively prosecuted under a federal law that passed in 2003 and made the statute of limitations indefinite for sex crimes with minors.

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