A federal appeals court has upheld R. Kelly's 20-year prison sentence in Chicago for federal sex crimes.

As reported by CBS News, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled against R. Kelly's legal team's arguments that his indictment on child enticement and child pornography charges were filed after the statute of limitations lapsed.

His legal team was seeking a new sentencing hearing in appeals court after they claimed the 20-year sentence was "unduly harsh."

"For years, Robert Sylvester Kelly abused underage girls," wrote Judge Amy St. Eve in a unanimous ruling. "By employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet, he long evaded consequences. In recent years, though, those crimes caught up with him at last. But Kelly—interposing a statute-of-limitations defence—thinks he delayed the charges long enough to elude them entirely."

"The statute says otherwise, so we affirm his conviction. ... An even-handed jury found Kelly guilty, acquitting him on several charges even after viewing those abhorrent tapes. No statute of limitations saves him, and the resulting sentence was procedurally proper and—especially under these appalling circumstances—substantively fair."

R. Kelly was convicted of six counts of child pornography and child enticement by a Chicago federal jury in September 2022.

He was acquitted of seven other charges but was found guilty for videos of him sexually abusing three children, including his then 14-year-old goddaughter. In February 2023, he was sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

The sentencing came just over half a year after he was sentenced to 30 years in prison following his 2021 conviction by a federal jury for child sex crimes and racketeering in New York. He is serving the sentences concurrently but is currently appealing the New York conviction.

The upholding of the charges and sentence against R. Kelly comes the same week as disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction in New York was overturned.

In February 2020, he was found guilty and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He was charged a further 16 years, to be served separately, in Los Angeles in 2022. His sentence in California remains unaffected by the decision in New York.