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The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
The singer R. Kelly was correctly sentenced to 20 years in prison on child sex convictions in Chicago, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
Jurors in 2022 convicted the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, on three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex.
In his appeal, Kelly argued that Illinois' former and shorter statute of limitations on child sex crime prosecutions should have applied to his Chicago case rather than current law permitting charges while an accuser is still alive.
He also argued that charges involving one accuser should have been tried separately from the charges tied to three other accusers due to video evidence that became a focal point of the Chicago trial.
Federal prosecutors have said the video showed Kelly abusing a girl. The accuser identified only as Jane testified for the first time that she was 14 when the video was taken.
The three-judge panel from the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Friday's ruling noted that jurors acquitted Kelly on seven of the 13 counts against him "even after viewing those abhorrent tapes."
The appeals court also rejected Kelly's argument that he should not have been prosecuted since the allegations occurred while Illinois law required prosecution of child sex crime charges within 10 years. The panel labelled it an attempt by Kelly to elude the charges entirely after "employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet."
In a written statement, Kelly's attorney Jennifer Bonjean said they plan to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the decision and "pursue all of his appellate remedies until we free R. Kelly."
"We are disappointed in the ruling, but our fight is far from over," she said.
Prosecutors in Kelly's hometown of Chicago had sought an even tougher sentence, asking for 25 years. They also wanted a judge to not let that time begin until after Kelly completed a 30-year sentence imposed in 2022 in New York for federal racketeering and sex trafficking convictions.
Judge Harry Leinenweber rejected that ask, ordering that Kelly serve the 20 years from the Chicago case simultaneously with the New York sentence.
Kelly has separately appealed the New York sentence.
In arguments last month before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, attorney Jennifer Bonjean asked the panel to find that prosecutors improperly used a racketeering statute written to shut down organized crime to go after the singer.
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
The province’s health minister and solicitor general are urging Toronto to rescind its request to decriminalize simple possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, calling the proposal 'misguided' and 'disastrous.'
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assailed New Brunswick's premier and other conservative leaders on Thursday, calling out the provincial government's position on abortion, LGBTQ youth and climate change.
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A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.