R. Kelly Denied Appeal of Federal Racketeering and Sex Trafficking Conviction and 30-Year Prison Sentence
R. Kelly, June 2019 ()
In 2023, R. Kelly formally appealed his conviction on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges. On Wednesday (February 12), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the conviction and its corresponding 30-year prison sentence. In a statement to The Associated Press, R. Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, called the ruling 'unprecedented' and said that she believes the Supreme Court of the United States will agree to hear a further appeal.
This week's decision has to do with Kelly's New York federal case, but the disgraced R&B singer was also convicted, in a Chicago federal court, of producing child pornography and enticing girls for sex. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of his 20-year sentence in that case.
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Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Troubled Cook County tech firm used insider lobbyist who was later convicted in ComEd corruption scheme
. As a fledgling tech contractor looking to build its business in the insular world of Cook County politics, Texas-based Tyler Technologies turned to one of Illinois' most well-connected lobbyists to get the job done. In 2016, Jay Doherty not only lobbied Chicago, Cook County and state agencies, he was also the longtime president of the City Club of Chicago, a popular nonprofit civic organization. The dual roles granted Doherty access to the halls of power and enabled him to easily hobnob with decision-makers such as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who regularly appeared at the club's luncheons attended by hundreds of government and business leaders. He was a useful operative in the machine of longtime Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan. And he helped fundraise and organize the installation ceremony for Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, the wife of his longtime friend, Chicago Ald. Edward Burke. At the time Tyler hired Doherty in 2016, there was no indication any of the Tyler executives involved knew their new man in Illinois was also corrupt. Doherty would be convicted in 2023 of conspiracy in a scandal involving one of his other clients, Commonwealth Edison. It was part of a series of linked cases that ultimately ended Madigan's decades-long run as speaker. There is no direct connection between Doherty's work for ComEd and what he did for Tyler. Unlike Tyler's efforts seeking contract opportunities, the ComEd case detailed a vast criminal scheme of bribery and influence peddling as part of the utility's efforts to get legislation passed. But interviews and records about Doherty's work for Tyler and details from his 2023 trial reveal striking parallels in how he repeatedly smoothed paths for both clients, including creating informal interactions at City Club events attended by government officials so the two sides could discuss business outside the office. Tyler executives won't say exactly when they hired Doherty, only that it was sometime in 'late 2016.' Doherty didn't formally report any lobbying activity for Tyler until March 2017. It was a pivotal time for the company. In 2015, Tyler won a $30 million contract to upgrade and digitize the county's property tax system, but in October 2016 the company blew its first major deadline. In a separate contract signed earlier that year, the Supreme Court had agreed to pay Tyler Technologies $8.4 million to digitally connect it to each of the state's 102 county clerk offices. And, despite concerns from some county commissioners regarding Tyler's problems in other localities, the company was trying to score yet a third contract worth $36.5 million to bring the Cook County Circuit Court database into the 21st century. A review of email correspondence, court and contract records and dozens of interviews by Injustice Watch and the Chicago Tribune reveals how Doherty went to work for his new client. He set up key meetings to lobby Tyler critics. He invited the county's chief technology officer — who was then hashing out final details on its second county contract — to speak at the City Club. And, at another City Club event, Tyler's vice president of sales was placed at the same table as County Commissioner John Fritchey — chair of the board's Technology and Innovation Committee and a leading Tyler skeptic. Over the next three years, Doherty lobbied for Tyler as it navigated blown deadlines and pursued new procurement opportunities even as failed rollouts had some county elected officials calling on Preckwinkle — who as board president was invited to speak 17 times at the City Club during Doherty's tenure — to fire Tyler. Tyler was not fired. Instead, what began as a series of three contracts for a total of $75 million has now ballooned to more than $250 million. A decade later, one of the projects has yet to reach its declared finish line, another is reaching completion this month after a yearslong delay, and the third is still in need of fixes — dogged by slowdowns and shortcomings. Tyler touted its Cook County contract wins to become a national powerhouse in local government technology, reporting $2.1 billion in revenues from taxpayer-financed contracts last year alone. After Doherty's three-year run shepherding Tyler through numerous controversies, the company fired him in 2019 following media reports that federal authorities raided his offices and the City Club as part of their ComEd investigation. Doherty's lobbying methods only came to light through federal trial testimony, Cook County Bureau of Technology emails obtained through the open records act, and internal City Club records obtained by the Tribune and Injustice Watch. Doherty, 71, and his attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. Tyler executives said, through a spokesperson, the company's contract with Doherty required him to comply 'with all applicable laws. Within approximately two business days of learning about the allegations against Mr. Doherty, Tyler ended its agreement with him. Tyler has had no relationship with him since that time. Tyler was not involved in any investigation or prosecution of Mr. Doherty.' The son of a small city mayor in McHenry County, Doherty in the 1980s became an important fundraiser and political consultant for Democratic candidates in Chicago, including members of the Kennedy family and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. He kept six Rolodexes on the credenza behind his office chair and would flip through the cards, cradling a phone to one ear, one former lobbying associate recalled. In 1985, Doherty began his professional relationship with ComEd, receiving a $10,000-per-year retainer to lobby Washington's City Hall, where he claimed to have saved the utility more than $50 million, according to exhibits and testimony in Doherty's federal criminal trial. Ten years later, he began serving as the unpaid president of the City Club of Chicago, a 122-year-old nonprofit civic organization hosting bipartisan candidates' debates, journalist panels and speeches by political heavyweights from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. But starting in 2011 Doherty began using his lobbying firm, Jay Doherty & Associates, to funnel $1.3 million from ComEd to four Madigan allies for no-show subcontractor positions 'to influence and reward' Madigan, who helped orchestrate passage of three ComEd legislative proposals worth at least $150 million to the utility, prosecutors alleged. The utility admitted its role in the bribery scheme and agreed to pay the government a $200 million fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement. Madigan was charged in a connected but separate case in which he was convicted in February on bribery and conspiracy charges. Madigan is set to be sentenced Friday. Doherty was convicted in 2023 of six counts, including conspiracy and falsifying records. His sentencing date is scheduled for August. A relentless political consultant who worked long hours and on holidays, Doherty kept much of his work for Tyler and others out of the public eye. Fellow lobbyists say he rarely contacted targets at board meetings, instead peppering county officials with short emails to arrange private meetings and phone calls. Lobbying records show Doherty's one-man firm had at least 27 clients since 2014, but also show Doherty sometimes failed to disclose his activity as required. In 2021, the city fined him $75,000 for failing to register as a lobbyist for three companies. His trial also revealed how much he leaned into his position as president of one of Illinois' most venerable civic organizations to boost his lobbying clients. In one wiretapped conversation with another ComEd lobbyist who turned government witness, Fidel Marquez, Doherty explained why ComEd made significant charitable donations to the City Club while paying his lobbying retainer, which rose to $450,000 per year. ComEd executives understood the importance of the City Club as a place where Doherty could facilitate informal contacts with government officials, he told Marquez. 'They saw the value of being able to sit next to people in soft situations,' Doherty told Marquez in February 2019 as Marquez wore an FBI wire. Marquez responded: 'No, they, they, they know very, very well the value of a good relationship.' 'Yeah, and, and a soft relationship,' Doherty responded. 'A soft one, yes,' Marquez said. Marquez explained on the witness stand in Doherty's criminal trial that Doherty enabled ComEd leaders to appear as featured City Club speakers, and arranged for them to sit alongside government officials at the head table with the event's speaker, where they could 'get to chat with them for a little while.' At least half a dozen times, Doherty introduced ComEd executives at City Club events without mentioning he was also the company's lobbyist, the nonprofit's online archive shows. It helped boost the revenues of City Club — which raised and spent more than $1 million per year — when Doherty featured government officials who oversaw contracts as luncheon speakers, and brought in his clients to sit with them at reserved tables where they could talk privately, according to interviews and trial testimony. They were the same tactics Doherty used to benefit Tyler, the Tribune and Injustice Watch found. Four months before he reported any official work as Tyler's lobbyist, Doherty began taking steps that would benefit the rapidly growing Texas tech company. Among his late 2016 moves was booking Cook County's chief technology officer, Simona Rollinson, as a featured City Club speaker for the first time since she took the job four years earlier. Emails show Doherty had lobbied Rollinson for several years on behalf of other tech clients. He did not note that work or Tyler when he introduced Rollinson before her appearance at the City Club on Feb. 21, 2017. In her speech about ongoing efforts to upgrade the county's aging computer systems, she took credit for being a tough tech contract negotiator. Without naming Tyler, she declared the company was on schedule to install cloud-based, mass appraisal software for the county. 'We're going live with the assessor's office next year,' Rollinson announced. Her City Club prediction would prove premature. Tyler's revamp of basic Cook County assessor's office functions — called iasWorld — was scheduled to go live in December 2018, but it did not happen until 2021 after years of complaints about delays and cross-accusations of incompetence, government records show. In the weeks before and after Rollinson's City Club speech, final negotiations for Tyler's court contract were also taking place behind the scenes, records show. In emails, county and Tyler officials grappled over remaining sticking points, formed strategies to address board opposition, and discussed their talking points. Emails and lobbying disclosures also show Rollinson was scheduled to meet with Doherty and two of his other tech clients in the days leading up to crucial board votes. Rollinson, who no longer works in government, did not respond to requests for comment from the Tribune and Injustice Watch. On March 21, 2017, Tyler Vice President of Sales Eric Cullison met with Fritchey and separately with tech committee vice chair, Sean Morrison, to discuss their concerns about the pending $36.5 million contract with Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown, Cullison's lobbying records show. At a County Board hearing the next day, Commissioner Robert Steele raised questions about problems Tyler was having in other parts of the country. County Court Clerk Dorothy Brown's top deputy, Bridget Dancy, said at the hearing county officials reached out to other satisfied counties, and Tyler had demonstrated they knew how to convert and transfer data. Much of the data, images and talking points Dancy used originated from Cullison, emails show. Contacted by phone, Dancy said all the information she used came from other county officials. After the hearing, commissioners 'returned' it for further study until the next month. Although he had already been under contract with Tyler for months, Doherty registered his first lobbying activity for the company that day, disclosing the meetings with Rollinson, Fritchey and Morrison. Three weeks later, records show Cullison reported lobbying Rollinson at an April 10 'event' the day before a crucial Finance Committee vote. Although Cullison did not report any details about the event, Fritchey recalled being seated at the speaker's table with Cullison at a City Club luncheon. The next day, the Cook County Board approved the court clerk's $36.5 million contract with Tyler. Fritchey voted 'present.' 'It wasn't lost on me that it was one of the only times I recalled sitting at the City Club speaker's table or that I was seated with one of Jay's clients who had a large pending matter before my committee,' Fritchey said in an interview. 'You unfortunately can't help but think that he was leveraging his role at one of Chicago's leading civic institutions in furtherance of his private lobbying activities.' Charities such as the City Club can jeopardize their tax-exempt status if they're used to enrich their own officers, allegations Doherty had successfully faced down years before. In 2009, longtime City Club board member Kathy Posner complained to then-state Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office about Doherty's use of the club's staff, downtown office and power-elite database for his political consulting business. In response to the allegations, the City Club hired three attorneys who once worked in the AG's office to negotiate an agreement with Lisa Madigan's office. The agreement resulted in no violations, but City Club revised its bylaws and corrected its past financial reports — while keeping Doherty on as club president, records and interviews show. 'We investigated the allegations and none of it was true,' said Mike Hayes, one of the three attorneys who defended the City Club against the whistleblower's allegations. A year after the AG's investigation wrapped, in 2011, Doherty began working covertly with associates of Lisa Madigan's father, Speaker Madigan, according to trial testimony. He continued using City Club's offices and staff for his private lobbying work and showcasing his clients at club events, according to trial testimony and court records. He listed the City Club offices as his lobbying business' address; an administrative aide split her time between the club and his lobbying firm; and filing cabinets at the City Club office held folders on lobbying activity by two of Speaker Madigan's no-show subcontractors. 'If the AG had done its job and stopped Jay in his tracks back then, he wouldn't have been able to keep abusing City Club's tax-exempt status for his lobbying,' Posner said in a recent interview. Lisa Madigan declined to comment, but top staffers who investigated the City Club allegations in 2009 said she never meddled in the probe. In an email response to questions, Tyler executives said Doherty was recommended by a 'highly respected and well-established' vendor the company refused to name. The company said the vendor called Doherty 'a resource who could help Tyler navigate the County's complicated operational landscape.' Doherty reported Tyler paid him $45,325 to lobby Cook County officials. Tyler would not confirm his compensation or respond to other specific questions about Doherty's work. Tyler said Doherty's role was limited to Cook County, and he did not 'engage with' the Illinois Supreme Court, which had a separate contract at the same time. By the fall of 2017, Tyler faced serious problems on its Cook County property tax contract. Rollinson by then had become one of Tyler's critics. On Nov. 15, 2017, Rollinson wrote to Tyler 'to express my concern regarding Tyler's management.' Doherty met with her the same day, his lobbyist disclosure reports show. Doherty's last lobbying contact with Rollinson was in May 2018, records showed, but days later, she left her county post and moved back to the private sector. 'Jay, like most lobbyists, was more interested in lining his pockets than protecting taxpayers from dubious business and utility deals,' said Andy Shaw, a former executive director of the Better Government Association where he acted as liaison for City Club whistleblowers. 'This, sadly, is the 'Chicago Way' — on steroids.' .
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Federal appeals court to hear arguments in Trump's long-shot effort to fight hush money conviction
Five months after President Donald Trump was sentenced without penalty in the New York hush money case, his attorneys will square off again with prosecutors Wednesday in one of the first major tests of the Supreme Court's landmark presidential immunity decision. Trump is relying heavily on the high court's divisive 6-3 immunity ruling from July in a long-shot bid to get his conviction reviewed – and ultimately overturned – by federal courts. After being convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Trump in January became the first felon to ascend to the presidency in US history. Even after Trump was reelected and federal courts became flooded with litigation tied to his second term, the appeals in the hush money case have chugged forward in multiple courts. A three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals – all named to the bench by Democratic presidents – will hear arguments Wednesday in one of those cases. Trump will be represented on Wednesday by Jeffrey Wall, a private lawyer and Supreme Court litigator who served as acting solicitor general during Trump's first administration. Many of the lawyers who served on Trump's defense team in the hush money case have since taken top jobs within the Justice Department. The case stems from the 2023 indictment announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, who accused Trump of falsely categorizing payments he said were made to quash unflattering stories during the 2016 election. Trump was accused of falsifying a payment to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to cover up a $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out before the 2016 election about an alleged affair with Trump. (Trump has denied the affair.) Trump was ultimately convicted last year and was sentenced without penalty in January, days before he took office. The president is now attempting to move that case to federal court, where he is betting he'll have an easier shot at arguing that the Supreme Court's immunity decision in July will help him overturn the conviction. Trump's earlier attempts to move the case to federal court have been unsuccessful. US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, nominated by President Bill Clinton, denied the request in September – keeping Trump's case in New York courts instead. The 2nd Circuit will now hear arguments on Trump's appeal of that decision on Wednesday. 'He's lost already several times in the state courts,' said David Shapiro, a former prosecutor and now a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. And Trump's long-running battle with New York Judge Juan Merchan, Shapiro said, has 'just simmered up through the system' in New York courts in a way that may have convinced Trump that federal courts will be more receptive. Trump, who frequently complained about Merchan, has said he wants his case heard in an 'unbiased federal forum.' Trump's argument hangs largely on a technical but hotly debated section of the Supreme Court's immunity decision last year. Broadly, that decision granted former presidents 'at least presumptive' immunity for official acts and 'absolute immunity' when presidents were exercising their constitutional powers. State prosecutors say the hush money payments were a private matter – not official acts of the president – and so they are not covered by immunity. But the Supreme Court's decision also barred prosecutors from attempting to show a jury evidence concerning a president's official acts, even if they are pursuing alleged crimes involving that president's private conduct. Without that prohibition, the Supreme Court reasoned, a prosecutor could 'eviscerate the immunity' the court recognized by allowing a jury to second-guess a president's official acts. Trump is arguing that is exactly what Bragg did when he called White House officials such as former communications director Hope Hicks and former executive assistant Madeleine Westerhout to testify at his trial. Hicks had testified that Trump felt it would 'have been bad to have that story come out before the election,' which prosecutors later described as the 'nail' in the coffin of the president's defense. Trump's attorneys are also pointing to social media posts the president sent in 2018 denying the Daniels hush money scheme as official statements that should not have been used in the trial. State prosecutors 'introduced into evidence and asked the jury to scrutinize President Trump's official presidential acts,' Trump's attorneys told the appeals court in a filing last month. 'One month after trial, the Supreme Court unequivocally recognized an immunity prohibiting the use of such acts as evidence at any trial of a former president.' A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. If Trump's case is ultimately reviewed by federal courts, that would not change his state law conviction into a federal conviction. Trump would not be able to pardon himself just because a federal court reviews the case. Bragg's office countered that it's too late for federal courts to intervene. Federal officials facing prosecution in state courts may move their cases to federal court in many circumstances under a 19th century law designed to ensure states don't attempt to prosecute them for conduct performed 'under color' of a US office or agency. A federal government worker, for instance, might seek to have a case moved to federal court if they are sued after getting into a car accident while driving on the job. But in this case, Bragg's office argued, Trump has already been convicted and sentenced. That means, prosecutors said, there's really nothing left for federal courts to do. 'Because final judgment has been entered and the state criminal action has concluded, there is nothing to remove to federal district court,' prosecutors told the 2nd Circuit in January. Even if that's not true, they said, seeking testimony from a White House adviser about purely private acts doesn't conflict with the Supreme Court's ruling in last year's immunity case. Bragg's office has pointed to a Supreme Court ruling as well: the 5-4 decision in January that allowed Trump to be sentenced in the hush money case. The president raised many of the same concerns about evidence when he attempted to halt that sentencing before the inauguration. A majority of the Supreme Court balked at that argument in a single sentence that, effectively, said Trump could raise those concerns when he appeals his conviction. That appeal remains pending in state court. 'The alleged evidentiary violations at President-elect Trump's state-court trial,' the Supreme Court wrote, 'can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal.'
2 hours ago
Appeals court to take up Trump's challenge to his criminal hush money conviction
Just over a year after Donald Trump became the first former president to be found guilty of a felony, an appeals court is set to hear the president's bid to move his case to federal court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has scheduled oral arguments Wednesday to consider whether to move the president's criminal hush money case from state to federal court. Trump was found guilty last year on 34 felony counts after Manhattan prosecutors alleged that he engaged in a "scheme" to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and then falsified New York business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct. Trump's lawyers have argued that the conduct at issue during his criminal trial included "official acts" undertaken while he was president, giving the president broad immunity for his actions and the right to remove the case to federal court. They say that the Supreme Court's landmark ruling last year granting the president immunity for official acts -- which was decided after Trump was convicted in May -- would have prevented prosecutors from securing their conviction. "The fact that it was not until after the conclusion of his state criminal trial that the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision defining the contours of presidential immunity -- including a broad evidentiary immunity prohibiting prosecutors from inviting a jury to probe a President's official acts, as President Trump's removal notice alleges occurred here -- supplies good cause for post-trial removal," Department of Justice lawyers argued in an amicus brief filed with the court. Trump decried the prosecution as politically motivated and successfully delayed his sentencing multiple times before New York Judge Juan Merchan, on the eve of Trump's inauguration, sentenced the former president to an unconditional discharge -- the lightest possible punishment allowed under New York state law -- saying it was the "only lawful sentence" to prevent "encroaching upon the highest office in the land." "I did my job, and we did our job," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, said following Trump's conviction. "There are many voices out there, but the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken." Bragg has pushed back on Trump's attempt to remove the case from state court, arguing that a case cannot be moved to federal court after sentencing. "These arguments ignore statutory indicia that Congress intended for removal of criminal cases to happen before sentencing by anticipating that essential federal proceedings will take place prior to a final criminal judgment," prosecutors have argued. Trump's appeal will be heard by a panel of three federal judges, each of whom was nominated to the bench by Democratic presidents. With Trump's former defense attorneys now serving top roles at the Department of Justice, the president will now be represented by former Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall of the elite law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. In an usual step, lawyers with the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in support of Trump's request. "The United States has a strong and direct interest in the issues presented in this appeal," they argued. If the appeals court grants Trump's request, his conviction would still remain. The only change is that his appeal will play out in a federal, rather than state, courtroom. In either scenario, Trump could ultimately ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Moving the case into federal court could also open up the possibility that Trump could potentially pardon himself.
