R&B singer R. Kelly has formally appealed to United States President Donald Trump to commute his 31-year prison sentence for racketeering, sex trafficking and child sexual abuse-related offences.
According to court records released this week by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, the 59-year-old singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has filed a request for executive clemency with the US Department of Justice.
The application, which remains pending, seeks a commutation of his sentence rather than a full presidential pardon.
Kelly was convicted in 2021 on racketeering charges after prosecutors accused him of operating a criminal enterprise that recruited women and underage girls for illegal sexual activities and the production of child sexual abuse material.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
A year later, he was convicted in a separate federal case on three counts related to child sexual abuse material and three counts of child enticement.
Although he received an additional 20-year sentence, most of that term is running concurrently with his earlier conviction, leaving him with a combined prison sentence of 31 years.
Kelly is currently serving his sentence at a federal correctional facility in North Carolina and is scheduled for release in January 2046.
His lawyer, Beau Brindley, has been lobbying President Trump for clemency for more than a year.
Last year, Brindley also filed an emergency application seeking permission for Kelly to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest, alleging that prison officials had orchestrated a plot involving another inmate to kill the singer.
The court dismissed the request.
Kelly has consistently denied all allegations against him despite his convictions.
