Federal judge who presided over the trial of R. Kelly, who died at age 87 after battling lung cancer

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber, who presided over singer R. Kelly’s trial on child molestation charges, has died. He was 87 years old.

Leinenweber died Tuesday night, the Eastern Division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said in a statement. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Leinenweber was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year and died at the home he shared with his wife in Florida.

“Judge Harry D. Leinenweber was a friend, mentor and model jurist,” Northern District of Illinois Chief Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer said in the statement. “My colleagues and I are deeply saddened by the passing of Judge Leinenweber. We hope comfort and peace for his family. We thank his family for sharing him with us for over 39 years.”

President Ronald Reagan nominated Leinenweber, a former state legislator, to the bench in 1985. He assumed senior status, a form of semi-retirement, in 2002 but continued to work.

He presided over Kelly’s trial in 2022. Prosecutors charged the Grammy-winning singer of producing sexually explicit videos of children and luring girls for sex. The trial lasted a month before jurors finally Kelly sentenced of six of the 13 charges against him.

The verdict came months after a New York federal judge sentenced Kelly to 30 years in prison in June for extortion and sex trafficking. Leinenweber sentenced the singer to 20 years in prison in the Illinois case.

Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonojean, wrote in an email that she loved trying cases in front of Leinenweber.

“He allowed the lawyers to do their jobs and never put his finger on the scale of justice,” she wrote. “He was an honorable judge and an honorable man. The Judiciary needs more judges like him. He will be missed by lawyers on all sides of the aisle.”

Leinenweber also oversaw a trial last year that ended with four people convicted of bribery conspiracy which provided an inside look at pay-to-play politics in Illinois. Prosecutors accused two former ComEd executives, a former utility consultant and a longtime administration insider of arranging contracts, jobs and money from associates of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan to ensure that projects bills that increase ComEd’s profits become law. Madigan was charged in the case. His trial is scheduled to begin next year.

Robert Gaines served as a juror in the ComEd trial. He told the Sun-Times that Leinenweber had “complete control of the court.”

“He knew how to put his foot down and then how to let go,” Gaines said. “He was so nice and sensible. He was the coolest judge I’ve ever seen, on TV or off.”