Prosecutors said Kelly was a member of the so-called Mineola Swinger's Club, though Kelly has maintained his innocence. They contended Kelly helped set up a "kindergarten" where children learned to dance provocatively. To help perform at the club, prosecutors say the children were given Vicodin-like drugs the adults passed off as "silly pills."
"As we stand here, I still absolutely believe that my client is innocent," Kelly's defense attorney, Thad Davidson, said outside the courtroom after the trial.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Joe Murphy accused Kelly of having sexual contact with five children tied to the case who, he said, showed signs of sexual abuse.
"Why is it that every child that comes into contact with him is broken?" Murphy asked.
After the sentence was read, one of Kelly's victims spoke briefly in court. The girl told Kelly he had abused her and needed to go to prison and find God.
The defense attorney questioned why the children didn't remember details about the club and why they weren't examined by medical personnel trained to detect sexual abuse.
Davidson contended the lead investigator had little experience handling sex crimes, said he didn't conduct a thorough investigation and accused him of being improperly influenced by the foster mother of three of the children, Margie Cantrell, who brought the original complaint.
"So you got these incredible suggestive, tainted ... interviews. And who takes over the interviews? The woman who has custody of the three children," Davidson said.
Kelly, 41, testified during the trial that he has no knowledge of "silly pills" and never made children do any kind of sexual dancing or touched them inappropriately. He said he has never even been to the Mineola Swinger's Club.
Other witnesses called by Kelly's attorneys have said that while swinger parties took place in the building, children were never present.
"I thought things would go the justice way, but justice is fickle I guess," Kelly's mother, Linda Kelly, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I honestly don't know why it went the way it did. This is the first time I've heard all this stuff that the D.A. is putting out - that is not my child."
Cantrell sparked the investigation by the Texas Rangers when she reported that her foster children told her of having being forced into sex some 18 months earlier inside the windowless rooms of the former day care center.
Two other alleged participants, Jamie Pittman and Shauntel Mayo, already were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Three other defendants are awaiting trial.
Mineola is about 85 miles east of Dallas.
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Associated Press writer Linda Stewart Ball in Dallas contributed to this report.
