Tag: r kelly

  • R.Kelly found guilty of all nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking, risks life imprisonment

    R.Kelly found guilty of all nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking, risks life imprisonment

    R&B superstar, R.Kelly has been found guilty of racketeering in a high-profile sex-trafficking case after being trailed by accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse for a long time.

    The singer has been in custody and on trial in New York for one count of racketeering since he was formally charged in 2019, with 14 underlying acts that included sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and sex trafficking charges. He was also charged with eight additional counts of violations of the Mann Act, a sex trafficking law which bars the transport of people across state lines “for any immoral purpose.”

    Though R.Kelly who is best known for the 1996 hit “I Believe I Can Fly” pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case and did not take the stand in his own defense, prosecutors in the trial which centered around the allegations of six people, alleged that the singer was a serial sexual predator who abused young women as well as underage girls and boys for more than two decades.

    Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York successfully proved to a jury of seven men and five women that Kelly had been the head of a criminal enterprise, whose purpose was to lure girls, boys and women to the R&B singer for his sexual gratification

    In a closing argument that lasted two days, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes accused Kelly and his entourage of using tactics from “the predator playbook” to control his victims.

    It was alleged that his tactics include confining victims in hotel rooms or his recording studio, managing when they could eat and use the bathroom, and forcing them to follow various “rules,” including demanding they call him “Daddy.”

  • R. Kelly pleads not guilty to fresh charges

    R. Kelly pleads not guilty to fresh charges

    Shamed American songwriter, Robert Sylvester Kelly known by his stage name ‘R. Kelly’ has pleaded not guilty to new charges of child pornography and sexually abusing a teenage girl.

    The new alleged victim, referred to as Minor Six, was included as part of an updated federal indictment during an arraignment at a hearing in Chicago on Thursday.

    According to prosecution counsel, Kelly is said to have met the girl in either 1997 or 1998 when she was 14 or 15-years-old. He is accused of engaging in sexual contact or sexual acts with her when she was under 18.

    The indictment said Kelly “engaged in sexual contact and sexual acts” with Minor Six and four others when they were aged under 18. It also seeks to forfeit all assets from Kelly’s production company, Bass Productions Lt.

    Prosecutor Angel Krull said they had seized more than 100 electronic devices, after carrying out a search warrant.

    Judge Harry Leinenweber also pushed Kelly’s 27 April trial date back to 13 October.

    Kelly, who has denied all allegations of abuse, faces several dozen counts of state and federal sexual misconduct charges in Illinois, Minnesota and New York, from sexual assault to heading a racketeering scheme aimed at supplying the star with girls.

  • Aaliyah: R.Kelly pleads not guilty to bribery charge

    Aaliyah: R.Kelly pleads not guilty to bribery charge

    Embattled R&B star R. Kelly pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new indictment brought in New York alleging he bribed an Illinois official to get a fake ID for 15-year-old singer Aaliyah a day before he married her in 1994.

    According to Chicago Tribune, Kelly, 52 appeared for his arraignment before U.S. Judge Ann M. Donnelly in Brooklyn via a live television feed from a largely empty 17th-floor courtroom at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

    The superseding indictment filed in federal court in Brooklyn last week alleged that Kelly directed someone in August 1994 to bribe the public official into making a false “identification document” for Aaliyah.

    The next day, Kelly, then 27, married Aaliyah Haughton in a secret ceremony with falsified paperwork that gave her age as 18. The marriage was later annulled by a Michigan judge at the insistence of Aaliyah’s family.

    In Illinois, someone must be a minimum of 18 to marry without parental consent.

    The new allegation was added to the sweeping racketeering conspiracy indictment that New York prosecutors brought over the summer, accusing the singer of identifying underage girls attending his concerts and grooming them for later sexual abuse.

    Kelly is in federal custody awaiting trial on the New York charges as well as a separate indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Chicago alleging the singer conspired with two former employees to rig his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County by paying off witnesses and victims to change their stories.

    In addition, Kelly was charged in Cook County criminal court in February with four separate indictments accusing him of sexual misconduct over more than a decade. Three of those alleged victims were underage at the time.

    If convicted in all jurisdictions, the embattled singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, could potentially face the rest of his life in prison.

  • Revealed: How R. Kelly used bribes to marry Aaliyah when she was 15

    RnB singer, R.Kelly has been indicted by a New York grand jury with one count of bribery.

    The New York Times reports that the charge is related to obtaining a false ID so he could marry a 15-year-old singer.

    It’s part of a superseding indictment filed Thursday by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, who accuse Kelly of bribing an Illinois government employee on or about August 30, 1994, to obtain “a fraudulent identification document for Jane Doe #1, an individual whose identity is known to the Grand Jury.”

    The charge is related to Kelly’s relationship with Aaliyah Haughton, who was 15 years old in 1994 when Kelly reportedly married her.

    Their marriage was later annulled,citing court documents. The R&B singer died in a plane crash in 2001 at 22.

     

    Before the new report on the identity of Jane Doe, Kelly’s defense attorney, Steve Greenberg, called the indictment “ridiculous.”

    “We’re going to review the indictment, which we just got this afternoon. It doesn’t look like it materially changes anything in the case,” Greenberg said Thursday. “We continue to work on this and look forward to the day Robert is free.”

    Kelly was also charged in the Eastern District of New York in July in an indictment that accused him of violating the Mann Act by coercing and transporting women and girls across state lines to engage in illegal sexual activity as far back as 1999.

     

     

  • Sad! R. Kelly denied bail in sex crime trial

    Sad! R. Kelly denied bail in sex crime trial

    Famous singer , R.Kelly was recently denied bail bond after pleading not guilty to the federal sex crime charges leveled against him.
    The award winning performer was arraigned on Tuesday before the Chicago federal courtroom, following his arrest days earlier.
    According to court documents, the singer was indicted on one count of conspiracy to receive child pornography, two counts of receiving child pornography, and four counts of producing child pornography.
    He was also accused of paying huge sums to recover videotapes of himself having sex with underage girls, alongside five counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
    Lawyer who represented three of R. Kelly’s alleged victims, Michael Avenatti, claimed, before the hearing, that the singer had paid $2 million to shun a witness of the case during a previous trial.
    According to Harry Leinenweber, US district judge, R. Kelly would remain in custody as he awaits trial on child pornography charges.
    Steven Greenberg, the singer’s lawyer, had entered a not-guilty plea but Angel Krull, assistant US attorney, countered on the premise that the singer was a “flight risk” and that he might flee and pose a threat to the community.
    “The man is not a flight risk. The man never missed a court date in the 2000s when he was charged with a case. He hasn’t missed a court date on the state case that’s pending now,” Greenberg countered.
    “How can he flee? He has no money. It’s the worst-kept secret that he was going to get charged federally, and he hasn’t fled. So he’s certainly not a flight risk. He’s not a danger to anybody at all.”
    1. Kelly has faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse over the past 20 years and was acquitted of all charges in 2008.
  • R.Kelly pleads not guilty to fresh sex crime charges

    R.Kelly pleads not guilty to fresh sex crime charges

    ‘Trapped in the closet’ singer, R. Kelly, pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a Chicago courtroom to 11 new felony sex crime charges

    The charges were a refiling of one of the four cases of alleged abuse that prosecutors lodged against the singer earlier this year.

    A grand jury last week increased the felony counts against the pop star and upgraded some of the charges. He now faces five felony counts of heightened criminal sexual assault.

    If convicted of the most serious charges, Kelly would face obligatory sentences of six to 30 years in prison on each count.

    Kelly, through his lawyer, pleaded not guilty during a short arraignment hearing. The next court date was set for June 26.

    The singer’s attorney Steve Greenberg dismissed the new charges as a revising of old allegations.

    “It’s the same case. It’s just they changed what they charged him with,” Greenberg told reporters at the courthouse, while again attacking Kelly’s accusers, saying “they aren’t victims.”

    The 11 charges handed down by a Chicago grand jury are connected to the January 2010 alleged sexual assault and abuse of a person recognized in court documents only as JP.

    Three of the charges are for the sexual abuse of a child between 13 and 16 years old. In some of the counts, Kelly is accused of having threatened or used force against JP.

    The singer is currently out on bail after paying 10 percent of a $1 million bond, as is required in the state of Illinois.

    The presiding judge did not increase bail despite the more serious charges, because Kelly has appeared for all court dates as required.

    Kelly has a decades-long history of abuse allegations, especially of underage girls.

    He was acquitted in a child porn trial over a decade ago, and had maintained a steady fan base and continued to perform.

    His fortunes changed after the docu-series “Surviving R. Kelly” led Chicago prosecutors to publicly seek out potential victims.

    Prosecutors said they have DNA evidence and video of Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

    Much of that evidence has not yet been shared with Kelly’s defence team, Greenberg said, adding that he didn’t expect a trial until “sometime next year at the earliest.”

     

  • R.Kelly’s child porn case lawyer says he was guilty of charges

    R.Kelly’s child porn case lawyer says he was guilty of charges

    Lawyer who represented R. Kelly in a child pornography case 11 years ago has said the singer was guilty of the charges – and even needed anti-libido drugs to stem his sexual urges.

    ‘He was guilty as hell,’ Ed Genson, 77, declared to the Chicago Sun-Times.

    Kelly was found not guilty on all counts of child pornography at the trial in June 2008.

    The attorney of 54-years says he doesn’t know if the veteran crooner has done anything else ‘inappropriate’ recently, because of a measure he took after Kelly’s 2008 trial.

    ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ he said. ‘I had him go to a doctors to get shots, libido-killing shots. That’s why he didn’t get arrested for anything else.’

    Genson, who worked for Kelly for more than ten years, says he doesn’t feel conflicted for securing the Chicago crooner’s acquittal and keeping him out of prison.

    ‘I didn’t facilitate him,’ he told the paper. ‘He had already done what he’d done.

    ‘I did facilitate him in the sense I kept him out of trouble for 10 years. I was vetting his records. I listened to them, which ones would make a judge mad.’

    One of the songs Genson flagged to Kelly was his 2003 hit, ‘Ignition’, which the former lawyer said raised some serious concerns.

    ‘I was riding in the car, listening to a song and said, ‘Are you crazy? This is all I need,” Genson said.

    Genson recalled how he thought an early demo of the song hinted that Kelly was interested in underage girls.

    ‘It’s a song related to a guy driving around in a car with his girlfriend. It was originally a high school instructor in a class teaching people how to drive a car.

    ‘I changed the words,’ he claimed.

    Despite his commercial success, Genson – who is suffering from terminal cancer – went on to describe Kelly as ‘not a very bright person’, and suggested he may have become even more reckless in the years since his first trial.

    ‘What he doesn’t understand is this: If you win a case with somebody, they think they’re bulletproof,’ Genson said.

    ‘You’re almost better off, sort of, losing. He thinks he can do whatever the hell he wants. He has done everything he can to hurt himself.’

    TheNewsGuru recalls that Kelly gave a shocking interview to CBS where he protested his innocence, cried and wept.

    He even appeared to be physically restrained during the animated outburst, in which he vehemently denied all allegations against him.

    ‘Quit playing, I didn’t do this stuff,’ the pop singer tearfully told Gayle King of CBS News on Tuesday.

    ‘This is not me. I’m fighting for my f*****g life.’

    Kelly was indicted on February 22 in a Chicago courtroom on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against four victims, three of whom were underage at the time the alleged crimes were committed.

    If convicted, he could face a maximum prison sentence of 70 years – 7 years for each count.

     

  • Sad! R.Kelly jailed after failing to pay more than $161,000 in child support

    Sad! R.Kelly jailed after failing to pay more than $161,000 in child support

    Musician R. Kelly was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon after failing to obey a judge’s order that he pay more than $161,000 in back child support.

    Dozens of reporters and photographers crammed a narrow hallway to watch Kelly, sporting black sunglasses and a dark blue suit with a lighter blue dress shirt, as he made his way through security screening before the hearing began.

    Kelly, who didn’t say anything audible, pulled off the shades as he walked into Judge Lori Rosen’s courtroom on the lower level of the Daley Center.

    More than an hour after Kelly entered the closed court hearing, he was led away in handcuffs, accompanied by Cook County sheriff’s deputies. “He’s in our custody,” said Sophia Ansari, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.

    Recall that judge Rosen last month warned Kelly that he faced jail time unless he paid the child support. During Wednesday’s hearing, Kelly was found in contempt and ordered into custody, according to Cara Smith, chief policy officer at the sheriff’s office.

     

    Kelly must pay $161,663 to be released from jail, she said. His next court date is March 13.

    The arrest comes less than two weeks after Kelly put up $100,000 to be released from custody on criminal sexual abuse charges.

    Records connected to Kelly’s divorce case have been kept secret and out of public view. But paperwork on the back child support was made public in Kelly’s criminal court file. Kelly and his ex-wife have three children together.

    Kelly’s publicist, Darryll Johnson, said the musician showed up with $50,000 or $60,000, but the judge wanted the full amount paid. “As you know, he hasn’t worked in a long time,” Johnson said.

    When asked how Kelly can still live in the Trump Tower, he replied that Kelly “has some money.”

    Kelly was “happy” when he arrived for the hearing, not thinking he would be jailed, Johnson said. But now he is “depressed, deflated and upset.” One man heckled Johnson as he spoke to the media.

    The woman who posted Kelly’s bail after the criminal charges was at the Daley Center on Wednesday but left without speaking to reporters.

     

     

    Kelly was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Cook County prosecutors allege he abused four victims, three of them underage girls, over a span of 12 years. Kelly and his attorney have vehemently denied the accusations.

     

     

  • I didn’t do it- R.Kelly denies sexual abuse allegations in interview [Video]

    I didn’t do it- R.Kelly denies sexual abuse allegations in interview [Video]

    American pop star, R.Kelly has denied all the sexual abuse allegations levelled against in a first interview since his release.

    In an interview with Gayle King on ‘CBS This Morning‘ the music icon denied all the sexual abuse allegations and claims that he manipulated women into staying with him in emotionally and physically abusive relationships.

     

    “Hate me if you want to, love me if you want, But just use your common sense. How stupid would it be for me, with my crazy past and what I’ve been through — oh, right now I just think I need to be a monster, hold girls against their will, chain them up in my basement, and don’t let them eat, don’t let them out!” he said.

     

     

    In the interview, R.Kelly gets all emotive and couldn’t keep his calm as he went on cursing and pleading on the camera. “I didn’t do this stuff! This is not me!” he said .

     

    TheNewsGuru recalls that R.Kelly was arrested and charged with a 10 count charge in February 2018 for sexual abuse involving a number of women. He was however granted bail after a bond of $100k was paid.

     

    TMZ also revealed that Kelly’s $100k bond 10% of his $1 million bail was finally posted Monday, February 25, 2019, after he appeared in court and entered a not guilty to plea to all 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse.

     

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BuqZrmpBTC-/

     

  • Female fans Of R. Kelly to pay bail bond

    A certain court clerk’s office has reportedly received multiple calls from female fans of R. Kelly, interested as to how they can post his bond, which has been set for $100,000, according to Chicago based reporter named Will Lee.

     

    In a post shared on Sunday via Twitter, Lee noted stated the uncommon scheme fans of the embattled Kelly are employing to help secure his freedom.

     

    He wrote:”A court clerk just told me their office was receiving calls from female #RKelly fans wanting to know how to post bail for him. The love is real, I guess”

     

    Cook Country Courthouse Judge, John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. during R. Kelly’s bail hearing on Saturday, called the allegations against the singer “disturbing.”

    He afterward set the bail bond at $1 million, and Kelly would need to pay up to $100,000 to get released from police custody prior to his trial.

    The singer is however unable to come up with the sum yet, as his finances are currently a “mess,” according to his attorney Steve Greenberg.

    But after spending a second night in prison for being unable to raise the money, it appears as though Kelly’s remaining female fans are going to come to his rescue. Greenberg has also stated that Kelly will likely be able to come up with money by Sunday, only 24 hours before his next scheduled court appearance.

    If Kelly gets convicted for the ten counts of felony criminal sexual abuse he’s been charged with, he could potentially be locked up for the rest of his life.