As the long-shot motion for a new trial remains pending, imprisoned Chicago R&B superstar R. Kelly has formally asked President Donald Trump to commute his 30-year sentence for an array of sexual misconduct convictions.

The request for clemency was made public this week by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, the Department of Justice agency that reviews filings for executive clemency for the White House. Kelly’s request, which remains pending, was for a commutation of his sentence, not a full pardon, online records show. The underlying documents filed with the request were not made public.

Kelly’s formal bid for clemency comes more than a year after his newly hired attorney, Beau Brindley, made a public plea to Trump to release the singer from prison immediately, alleging a far-fetched plot by federal authorities to steal his mail and turn witnesses against him, then have a convicted member of the Aryan Brotherhood murder him in prison to keep it all from being exposed.

In a news conference outside the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in June 2025, Brindley admitted point-blank that he was targeting Trump, and that they were actively “seeking talks with the White House” about Kelly’s future.

“R. Kelly does not have the time, with his life in danger, to go through the normal channels,” Brindley said. “I will ask President Trump to help us, because we need him.”

Brindley, however, never officially filed for clemency at the time, nor did he file any court pleading seeking relief in North Carolina where Kelly is being held. Instead, Brindley has pursued a new trial in U.S. District Court in Chicago, arguing prosecutors tainted the conviction by conspiring to steal the singer’s jail correspondence.

Prosecutors have called the allegations a “fishing expedition” that should be roundly rejected.

“Vague, conclusory allegations are insufficient to warrant a hearing,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Walgamuth wrote in a court filing last month.

That motion is pending before U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold.

Brindley, meanwhile, has gotten in some hot water of his own. Last month, the Illinois Attorney Discipline and Registration Commission filed a 31-page complaint against him alleging a pattern of misconduct in districts from Alaska to Chicago, including lying to judges and stealing tens of thousands of dollars from clients through unearned legal fees.

Brindley has denied any misconduct. A hearing date on the allegations, which could lead to disbarment, has not been set.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Brindley confirmed he was helping Kelly with his bid for clemency and that it’s “ongoing.” As for the ARDC charges, Brindley said, “I’m not too worried about it.”

Kelly, 59, was convicted in 2022 in Chicago of child pornography for making explicit videos of himself and his then-teenage goddaughter, who testified at trial under the pseudonym Jane. He also was convicted of inappropriate sexual relations with Jane and two other teenage girls, “Pauline” and “Nia.”

The jury acquitted Kelly and two co-defendants on charges they conspired to retrieve incriminating tapes and rig his 2008 trial by pressuring Jane to lie to investigators about their relationship and refuse to testify against him.

Kelly was also found not guilty of filming himself with Jane on a video that jurors never saw. Prosecutors said “Video 4″ was not played because Kelly’s team successfully buried it, but defense attorneys questioned whether it existed at all.

Brindley represented Kelly’s former manager, Derrel McDavid, in that case, but has since been hired by Kelly.

Meanwhile, Kelly was also convicted in federal court in New York in 2021 of racketeering conspiracy charges alleging his musical career doubled as a criminal enterprise aimed at satisfying his predatory sexual desires.

He’s serving his time in a medium-security federal prison facility in Butner, North Carolina, and is not eligible for release until January 2046, records show.

On its surface, Kelly would seem to have little shot at clemency from the White House, particularly given the intense scrutiny on the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking minors.

But Trump has been unpredictable when it comes to doling out pardons and commutations, often bypassing the formal process altogether.

Kelly also joins a growing list of well-known Chicago federal defendants who have sought White House relief in Trump’s second term.

Last year, he commuted the federal life sentence of Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover.

Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby the White House for her release, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, records show. Pramaggiore was freed from prison earlier this year when an appeals court ordered a new trial, but her formal request for clemency with the Office of the Pardon Attorney remains pending, records show.

Former House Speaker Michael Madigan, who is serving a 7 1/2-year sentence for corruption, also has explored a bid for White House clemency and has a petition for commutation on file with the Pardon Attorney.

Kelly’s motion for a new trial filed last year alleged that federal prosecutors, prison guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and Kelly’s own former cellmate — a convicted sex trafficker from India — conspired to steal his communications with his attorneys and used those communications to turn Kelly’s onetime girlfriend, Azriel Clary, against him out of jealousy.

Kelly’s attorneys claimed in the filing that he got a phone call from a Bureau of Prisons official advising him to “avoid the mess hall” due to potentially poisoned meals and commissary goods and implying that he was in danger in prison.

One federal inmate, a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood gang, allegedly approached Kelly and told him that federal prison officials had directed him to kill Kelly in exchange for authorities looking the other way and letting him escape prison, the motion stated.

Kelly also had sued the Bureau of Prisons alleging a former employee leaked his jail calls and other information to a video blogger.

But that suit was dismissed for want of prosecution after Brindely failed to meet a number of court-imposed deadlines for discovery.

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