NEW YORK, N.Y. — R. Kelly has been convicted on all counts in a sex trafficking trial held in Brooklyn.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced the verdict on Twitter.

A federal jury found the disgraced singer guilty on one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating of an anti-sex trafficking law called the Mann Act. He now faces the possibility of decades in prison after he's sentenced on May 4, 2022, The New York Times and NBC News report.

The 54-year-old singer of the hit “I Believe I Can Fly” was charged in July of 2019 with racketeering predicated on criminal conduct including sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping, forced labor and Mann Act violations involving the coercion and transportation of women and girls in interstate commerce to engage in illegal sexual activity.

Kelly was also charged with four counts of violating the Mann Act related to his interstate transportation of a victim to New York to engage in illegal sexual activity, and his exposure of her to an infectious venereal disease without her knowledge.

Court documents allege Kelly and individuals who served as his managers, bodyguards, drivers, personal assistants, runners, and his entourage comprised a racketeering enterprise that operated for over two decades in New York, Illinois, Connecticut, California, and elsewhere.

Kelly allegedly used his fame to recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with him and others.

Kelly is accused of identifying girls and women before directing members of the “enterprise” to escort them backstage or to events following his musical performances, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office.

“Kelly also exchanged contact information with girls and women so that he and other members of the enterprise could arrange travel and lodging for them to visit Kelly and engage in the charged illegal sexual conduct,” the office wrote in a press release in 2019.

Kelly allegedly issued rules that many of his sexual partners were required to follow, including that the women and girls were to call him “Daddy.” They were reportedly not allowed to leave their rooms to eat or visit the bathroom without receiving his permission. Officials say the women and girls were also required to wear baggy clothing when not accompanying Kelly to an event, and they were directed to keep their heads down and not look at other men.

“Kelly also isolated the women and girls from their friends and family, and made them dependent on him for their financial well-being,” wrote the office.

NEW YORK, N.Y. — A prosecutor has introduced a jury to the sex abuse claims against R&B star R. Kelly, saying the criminal trial is “about a predator" who used his fame to manipulate children and women.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez delivered the opening remarks Wednesday at the long-anticipated federal trial arising from years of allegations that Kelly sexually abused women and girls.

It came more than a decade after Kelly was acquitted in a 2008 child pornography case in Chicago. That acquittal was a reprieve that allowed his music career to continue until the #MeToo era caught up with him, emboldening alleged victims to come forward.

In the New York City sex trafficking trial, the singer is facing an anonymous jury made up of seven men and five women. The panel was sworn last week after dozens of potential jurors were screened by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in federal court in Brooklyn.

The judge in the case sought assurances from prospective jurors that they could remain impartial given all the bad publicity swirling around Kelly since his 2019 arrest.

The trial comes two years after Kelly was charged with abusing women and girls for nearly two decades. He's charged with leading what prosecutors call a criminal enterprise of managers, bodyguards and other employees who allegedly helped him recruit women and girls for sex.

The 54-year-old defendant denies the charges against him. Defense lawyers have said Kelly’s alleged victims were groupies who only started accusing him of abuse years later when public sentiment shifted in the #MeToo era.

The trial is not being televised. The New York Times reports that the press and public will watch the proceedings from two overflow rooms in the courthouse.

Kelly came to prominence in the late '80s and early '90s. He has had a number of hit songs, but most people know him for “I Believe I Can Fly,” the 1996 sing-along that became an inspirational anthem played at school graduations, weddings and advertisements.