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R&B singer R.Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has filed a formal request for executive clemency, asking United States President Donald Trump to commute the 31-year prison sentence he is serving for racketeering, sex trafficking and child sexual abuse-related offences.
According to The Guardian on Thursday, court records released this week by the Office of the Pardon Attorney show that Kelly submitted an application for executive clemency to the US Department of Justice.
The records indicate that the request, which remains pending, seeks a commutation of his sentence rather than a full presidential pardon.
Kelly, 59, was convicted in 2021 on racketeering charges after prosecutors said he led a criminal enterprise that recruited women and underage girls for illegal sexual activity and the production of pornography. 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.
He received a 20-year sentence, with most of it running concurrently with his earlier term, extending his total prison sentence by one year.
Kelly is serving the combined 31-year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina and is not expected to be released until January 2046.
His lawyer, Beau Brindley, has been seeking clemency from Trump for more than a year.
In 2025, Brindley filed an emergency motion requesting that Kelly be transferred to home detention, alleging that prison officials were involved in a plot to have him killed by another inmate. The court rejected the application.
Kelly has consistently denied the allegations against him.
