R. Kelly avoids lengthy add-on to 30-year prison sentence

FILE - R. Kelly, center, leaves the Daley Center after a hearing in his child support case May 8, 2019, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Marton, File)

A federal judge on Thursday rejected a call from prosecutors to keep R. Kelly behind bars until he is 100, instead telling the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer he would serve all but one of his 20 years on child sex convictions simultaneously with a previous sentence.

Handed down in a courtroom in Kelly's hometown of Chicago, the sentence means Kelly could make it out of prison alive, when he is about 80. Prosecutors had asked Judge Harry Leinenweber to sentence him to 25 years - and to not let him begin serving those until after he completed the first 30-year sentence, imposed on him last year in New York for federal racketeering and sex trafficking convictions.