This story contains discussion of sexual violence. Please proceed with care.
The 2019 release of explosive documentary Surviving R. Kelly played an important role in the legal pursuit of the R&B singer, highlighting a laundry list of truly disturbing allegations of sexual violence that spanned the course of decades. Today, Robert Kelly is facing a host of local and U.S. federal charges in two states, and the most serious charges made against him are about to become even more egregious thanks to new evidence gathered by the state of New York.
In July 2019, federal prosecutors from both Illinois and New York indicted Kelly on a number of serious federal crimes including racketeering, kidnapping, child pornography production, and child sexual exploitation. Over the last two years, the prosecution has increased the charge count to 22, and now, new evidence of criminal behaviour by the musician is raising the stakes for his Brooklyn-based trial.
Prosecutors in Brooklyn are appealing to the court to allow new evidence of Kelly’s misdeeds to be considered in his racketeering trial. Details from a recently filed motion claim include testimony from a woman that claims Kelly contacted her to request pornographic images of young boys for him. The filing also has evidence that Kelly threatened his sexual partners, sexually abused a young boy that he met at a McDonalds in 2009, and attempted to bribe multiple state and county employees so that they would look the other way.
Prosecutors claim that the evidence includes a recording in which Kelly’s crisis manager reveals that he “tipped” an Illinois court clerk $2,500 (£1,811) to get the singer a burner phone while he was behind bars. Another bribe detailed was a $500 (£362) payment that Kelly allegedly made to a state employee in 1994 in order to create fraudulent identification for a 15-year-old girl known only as “Jane Doe 1” so he could marry her at the time. We now know that the teenage girl involved was the late singer Aaliyah.
New York prosecutors believe that all of these actions further support the claims that Kelly and his team have been engaging in racketeering activity for decades now, and they’re hoping that the judge will allow the evidence to be considered in the upcoming criminal trial. If found guilty for racketeering with this new evidence, Kelly could be facing up to 25 years in prison — and that possible sentence doesn’t even include the numerous other felony charges he’s facing.
The trial is set to officially begin on August 18, giving the court just two weeks to select an unbiased jury for this high stakes legal proceeding.
If you have experienced sexual violence of any kind, please visit Rape Crisis or call 0808 802 9999.
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