Woman who posted bond for R. Kelly can’t get her $100K back, judge rules

A woman who posted bond for R. Kelly earlier this year will not get her money back — at least not any time soon, a Cook County judge ruled Tuesday.

Valencia Love put up the $100,000 in February after the singer spent three nights in Cook County Jail.

The money bought his freedom for about four months — before he was arrested again on federal charges.

Love’s attorney, John Collins, filed a four-page motion Friday seeking the return of Love’s money.

In a court hearing Tuesday, Collins told Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood that, when she posted the money, Love had no knowledge of federal investigations in New York or Chicago.

It made no sense to withhold the money because Kelly was being held without bond in those federal cases — negating the use of her money, Collins argued.

Flood denied that motion, saying there was no legal basis for it.

Love could get her money back at the end of Kelly’s criminal case in Cook County, but that could take years.

“She’s worried she’s in jeopardy of losing that money,” Collins said in court.

Love is also concerned the money could, at the conclusion of the case, be ordered by a judge to pay for Kelly’s attorney fees, Collins said.

But reached later Tuesday, Love told the Chicago Sun-Times that’s exactly what she wants to do.

Kelly already had reimbursed her $100,000 just three days after he posted his bond, she said.

“He wasn’t able to get to his money because it was the weekend and he was the only one who had access to his account. It was basically a loan,” Love said.

Love said she wants the money returned so she could give it to R. Kelly’s team to cover his legal costs and other expenses.

“Why is it such a big deal? He’s already locked up,” she said. “Why can’t the bail money be returned?”

While Love wouldn’t provide any details about the nature of her relationship with Kelly, she vehemently defended the embattled R&B star and called into question the nature of the allegations against him.

“At no point have I ever supported a pedophile,” Love said. “He has not been convicted yet. Why is it so bad that I did a favor for a friend?”

After the court hearing, Collins had said Love also helped Kelly out by paying about $50,000 in back child support to spring the singer after he was briefly jailed for not paying the debt in March.

Love, however, said that is one favor she did not do.

Pool photo by Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune

Kelly’s attorney, Steve Greenberg, said it’s premature to speculate on whether the bond money might ultimately go toward attorney fees, but he isn’t angling for it.

“I can assure you that we’re not working, hoping that at the end of the case we’re getting bond money,” Greenberg said.

He didn’t directly answer whether attorneys representing Kelly are being paid, but said: “If Mr. Kelly reaches a point where he can’t pay any lawyers to represent him, you’ll see a public defender.”

Flood also denied a motion filed by Cook County prosecutors seeking to increase Kelly’s bond, essentially calling it overkill because Kelly is already being held without bond in federal cases brought against him in New York and Illinois.

“At this particular time it’s kind of a moot point,” Flood said.

Kelly is being held at a federal detention center downtown but was transported Tuesday to the county’s main criminal courthouse by federal marshals.

Kelly, wearing an orange jumpsuit, hands clasped behind his back, stood motionless during the 10-minute hearing. As he was escorted from the courtroom, he glanced and nodded toward the gallery, where his girlfriends, Joycelyn Savage, 23, and Azriel Clary, 21, sat.

In February, the embattled R&B singer was charged in Cook County with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Prosecutors allege the abuse involved four victims, at least three of them minors, from 1998 to 2010.

A federal indictment in Chicago, unsealed in July, accuses Kelly of nine counts of enticing a minor, three counts of child pornography and one count of obstruction of justice. Other criminal charges were unsealed in New York.

Pool photo by Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune

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