Federal charges ramp up pressure on R. Kelly to make deal

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Federal charges ramp up pressure on R. Kelly to make deal

2019-08-07 05:18 Last Updated At：05:30

R. Kelly couldn't be faulted if he felt some confidence he could beat the sex charges brought by Cook County prosecutors earlier this year. He had beaten them before, winning acquittal on all counts in a 2008 child pornography trial.

Any confidence the R&B star may have felt likely melted away last month, though, when he was indicted on federal charges in New York and Chicago. Federal prosecutors secure convictions more than 90% of the time, whereas their state counterparts' conviction rate hovers around 65%, court records show.

Federal prosecutors have far more resources and face less political pressure, so they can take their time building a case until they believe it is air-tight.

"Federal charges are the major leagues. It's a completely different ballgame for Kelly now," said Phil Turner, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago.

The federal charges will increase pressure on Kelly to seek a plea deal, which is what the overwhelming majority of defendants in federal cases do.

The 40 counts Kelly faces, including two state counts brought this week in Minnesota, carry a combined maximum prison sentence of more than 500 years, meaning Kelly could spend the rest of his life behind bars if he loses badly at trial. A favorable deal may be the 52-year-old singer's only chance of leaving prison before he turns 70.

Federal prosecutors likely aren't in any rush to negotiate a deal so soon after filing charges, but they might eventually be open to one. Celebrity trials can be unpredictable, so there might be a greater chance of an acquittal or a hung jury. A deal would also spare Kelly's accusers the trauma having to testify and save U.S. attorneys' offices time and money.

Any negotiations would be complicated, as Kelly is charged in four jurisdictions and his lawyers would likely insist on a single deal that resolves all the cases. And prosecutors would only accept a deal that includes a lengthy prison term, said Gal Pissetzky, a Chicago trial lawyer who has represented multiple clients in plea discussions with the U.S. attorney's office.

"After so many years gone by with the allegations around Kelly, there is no way the feds are going to say, 'You know, you're right. We'll drop the most serious charges and let you plead out for a lower sentence," he said.

For the next few months, defense attorneys are likely to concentrate on trying to get weaker charges dismissed. They've spoken about challenging charges on double-jeopardy grounds, arguing that some are based on conduct for which Kelly was acquitted in 2008.

Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all the charges — except the new ones in Minnesota, where he will be arraigned later. The 21 Illinois state charges accuse him of sexually abusing three girls and a woman over a roughly 10-year period starting in the late 1990s. The two Minnesota charges, prostitution and solicitation, allege that he invited a 17-year-old girl to his hotel room in 2001 and paid her $200 to dance naked with him.

The 13 federal counts brought in Chicago accuse him of, among other things, filming himself having sex with underage girls and of paying off potential witnesses in his 2008 trial to get them to change their stories. The New York federal charges accuse Kelly of running a racketeering enterprise that arranged for girls to have sex with the singer. Prosecutors say Kelly had a list of rules to control girls, including requiring them not to look at other men, to eat only with his permission and to call him "Daddy."

Defense attorney Douglas Anton argued in a recent filing in the New York case that Kelly's accusers were disgruntled "groupies" who "pined to be with" Kelly and "fought each other" for his attention. He said prosecutors made "the stretch of all stretches" by arguing that the efforts by Kelly and his entourage to accommodate his adoring fans amounted to racketeering.

Kelly's negotiating position doesn't seem particularly strong.

Many defendants can agree to help prosecutors take down others higher up the chain of a criminal operation in exchange for leniency. But prosecutors say Kelly was the top figure in an alleged scheme to secure girls for sex and bury evidence — a scheme that also allegedly included two former employees, who are also facing charges — so he has no one above him to cooperate against.

Pissetzky said a best case scenario for Kelly would be if prosecutors allow him to plead guilty to one or two of the most serious charges, such as child porn production, which carries a sentence of 10-20 years in prison.

But even such a deal wouldn't necessarily lead to significantly less prison time than if he was convicted at trial because federal judges, when calculating a sentence, can and usually do factor in all the crimes a defendant was accused of, not just those the defendant pleaded guilty to, he said.

"So even if Kelly pleads guilty to one count, he could still be looking at much the same time he'd get if he went to trial and lost," Pissetzky said. "And you're talking allegations of sex crimes and minors. I don't think any judge will feel any mercy."

He said even in such a scenario, Kelly still might be looking at 30 or 40 years in prison.

"That amount of time, in your 50s, means you're leaving prison in a box," he said. "If the prison time you're looking at is so high, you may as well go to trial."

Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mtarm

Venice launches experiment to charge day-trippers an access fee in bid to combat over-tourism

2024-04-25 17:37 Last Updated At：17:41

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launched a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro (around $5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Visitors arriving at Venice's main train station were greeted with large signs listing the 29 dates through July of the plan's test phase, as well as new entrances separating tourists from residents, students and workers.

Stewards were on hand to politely guide anyone unaware of the new requirements through the process of downloading the QR code to pay the fee.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said the city’s top tourism official, Simone Venturini. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Arianna Cecilia, who lives in Rome and was visiting Venice for the first time with her boyfriend, said it felt “strange" to have to buy a ticket to enter a city in her native Italy, and then pass through a tourist entrance.

The couple were staying in nearby Treviso, and had paid the fee and downloaded the QR code as required prior to arrival.

Workers in yellow vests carried out random checks at the train station, and anyone caught faces fines of 50 euros to 300 euros — though officials said “common sense” was being applied for the launch.

The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free and unchecked.

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of over-tourism, and officials hope the pilot project can help provide more exact figures to better manage the phenomenon.

The city can track the number of hotel visitors — which last year numbered 4.6 million, down 16% from pre-pandemic highs. But the number of day visitors, which make up the majority of the crowds in Venice, could only be estimated until recently.

A Smart Control Room set up during the pandemic has been tracking arrivals from cell phone data, roughly confirming pre-pandemic estimates of 25 million to 30 million arrivals a year, said Michele Zuin, the city’s top economic official. That includes both day-trippers and overnight guests.

But Zuin said the data is incomplete. “It’s clear we will get more reliable data from the contribution” being paid by day-trippers, he said.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. Its narrow alleyways are clogged with people and water taxis packed, making it difficult for residents to go about their business.

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism. Some say more attention needs to be paid to boosting the resident population and services they need.

Venice last year passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park; you don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venturini said about 6,000 people had already paid to download the QR code, and officials expect paid day-tripper arrivals Thursday to reach some 10,000.

More than 70,000 others have downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. People staying in hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, should get a QR code attesting to their stay, which includes a hotel tax.

The tourist official says interest in Venice's pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities and cities abroad such as Barcelona and Amsterdam.

Marina Rodino, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, is opposed to the new plan. She was passing out mock EU passports for “Venice, Open City,” underlining the irony of the new system, and challenging its legal standing with citations from the Italian constitution guaranteeing its citizens the right to “move or reside freely in any part of the national territory."

Rodino has seen her local butcher close and families leave her neighborhood near the famed Rialto Bridge as short-term apartment rentals spring up. But she said the new entrance fee requirement will still allow young people to flood the city in the evening for often rowdy gatherings.

“This is not a natural oasis. This is not a museum. It is not Pompeii," she said. “It is a city, where we need to fight so the houses are inhabited by families, and stores reopen. That is what would counter this wild tourism.”