In September 2021, R. Kelly was found guilty of nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking. The 54-year-old’s legal team was expected to file an appeal for his conviction this week but asked for more time after the singer contracted COVID in the Brooklyn jail where he is awaiting sentencing.

According to The Chicago Tribune, Kelly’s legal team requested a two-week extension to submit the appeal, which was due this Thursday, Feb. 3. The court filing claimed COVID has “interfered with his ability to speak with counsel by telephone.”

Thirty-nine inmates have reportedly contracted the virus at the facility where Kelly is being held.

Kelly’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, whose appeal of Bill Cosby’s sex abuse case resulted in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacating his conviction, wrote in the motion, “It is vitally important that Mr. Kelly meaningfully participates in his post-trial defense.” Bonjean anticipates she will speak with Kelly via Zoom.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly granted the extension. The new deadline to file the appeal is now Feb. 17.

A Brooklyn, N.Y., jury found Kelly guilty of eight counts of violating the Mann Act, an anti-sex-trafficking statute, and one count of racketeering on Sept. 27, 2021. Bonjean told the Tribune in December that she is “becoming increasingly concerned with how the government is abusing the RICO statute in order to plead around the statute of limitations and essentially put people’s entire lives on trial. It’s becoming a formula for the government. You have a right to defend yourself against specific allegations.”

Under US code, racketeering – a charge most often associated with organized crime – refers to any act or threat including bribery, extortion, or dealing in an obscene matter carried out through coordinated illegal means.

According to the New York Times, prosecutors said in the case of R. Kelly that the singer and his “inner circle” recruited girls and young women for sexual exploitation, and to produce pornography, for more than two decades and in multiple states.

R. Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, is scheduled to be sentenced May 4, 2022 and is facing 10 years to life in prison.