R. Kelly
The latest updates and coverage of Robert Sylvester Kelly, the entertainer known as R. Kelly, as he faces felony charges that include sexual abuse, child pornography and racketeering.
The R&B singer will face another Chicago jury on Aug. 15, 2022. Here’s who he is and who else will be in the courtroom throughout the trial.
Original reporting on R. Kelly from the Chicago Sun-Times has been republished just before the R&B star goes back to court in August 2022.
Lawyers for one of Kelly’s co-defendants say the prosecutor identified an alleged Kelly victim as “Boss Baby” in her phone contact list and developed an inappropriate relationship with her.
The claim by attorneys for former Kelly worker Derrel McDavid landed less than two weeks before Kelly is set to go on trial in Chicago’s federal court on Aug. 15.
A week ago Donnell Russell was convicted of making a phone threat that gunfire was about to occur in a Manhattan theater ahead of a showing of a documentary on Kelly.
R. Kelly’s legal saga has been an unnecessarily drawn out debacle fueled by denial, greed and the willingness to ignore the cries of mostly Black girls and women.
Kelly is also just weeks away from another trial on charges that could carry even heavier penalties. Kelly’s child pornography and obstruction of justice trial in Chicago’s federal courthouse is set to begin Aug. 15.
Kelly is due to be sentenced in Brooklyn on June 29 and faces a potential life sentence. His attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, has asked the judge there to give him a sentence of less than 14 years behind bars.
It all began earlier this month when Kelly lawyer Jennifer Bonjean asked U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber to delay the trial set for Aug. 1 of Kelly, McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, another former Kelly worker.
Kelly’s new attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said she needs more time to review documents in the case.
Kelly is already facing a potential life sentence in federal prison after a jury in Brooklyn convicted him of racketeering. His sentencing there is set for June 15. Though his attorney had hoped to delay Kelly’s sentencing until after his Chicago trial, the Brooklyn judge refused.
The singer’s lawyer said the virus is among the factors that have delayed her ability to file post-trial motions in Kelly’s case. Kelly is being held in a Brooklyn detention center, where she said visits have been indefinitely suspended.
Despite the acts attached to Kelly, the singer’s three Grammys will remain with him for the time being.
The singer’s racketeering conviction last month in Brooklyn immediately raised the question of what might become of the case still waiting for him in Chicago’s federal court.
“Black women have been in this country for a long time and ... our bodies were never ours to begin with,” said Kalimah Johnson, executive director of the SASHA Center in Detroit, which provides services to sexual assault survivors.
A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly, 54, guilty of all nine counts, including racketeering. Kelly wore a face mask below black-rimmed glasses, remaining motionless with eyes downcast, as the verdict was read in federal court in Brooklyn.
We see a strong line from society’s refusal to believe Anita Hill in 1991 to a Brooklyn federal jury’s decision on Monday to believe Kelly’s many young Black victims.
Jamon Mytty said he still believes he and his fellow jurors made the right decision in 2008 “based on the evidence and the job we were given to do” in a trial famously missing the testimony of a victim.
The R&B singer will confront that question after a roughly five-week trial featuring 45 government witnesses that ended with the singer facing 10 years to life in prison. The remaining federal case in Chicago, where he is charged with child pornography and obstruction of justice, is just as perilous.
The panel of seven men and five women began deliberations Friday, ending the day without reaching a verdict They are due back in court on Monday to resume their work.
“It is now time to hold the defendant responsible for the pain he inflicted on each of his victims,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes said. “It is now time for the defendant, Robert Kelly, to pay for his crimes. Convict him.”
“The defendant set rules, lots of them, and he demanded complete obedience,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes.
The remark by attorney Deveraux Cannick, made with the jury out the courtroom, came as the defense wound down its case at the trial in federal court in New York City.
Prosecutors ended their case Monday. The defense will now begin calling former Kelly employees in an effort to cast doubt on some of the accusers’ accounts.
In court papers, prosecutors have described tapes of a profane Kelly threatening violence against victims during recorded rants in 2008.
According to a court document filed Tuesday, an enraged Kelly can be heard on one tape accusing an unidentified woman of lying to him before beginning to assault her: “If you lie to me, I’m going to f--- you up,” Kelly says.
Diana Copeland testified that Kelly kept strict policies for his entourage and once compelled her to write a letter falsely confessing to stealing from him.
“I was sexually assaulted,” the woman told jurors on Thursday at Kelly’s sex-trafficking trial. “It wasn’t something I invited.”
The employee had accessed Kelly’s records 153 times in 2019, even though she was not assigned to Chicago’s federal lock-up and had no official reason to access them.
The woman said when they began having sex, she told the singer she was worried about STDs. When she asked him to use protection, “he just said no,” she testified.