R. Kelly back in custody for failing to pay child support
CHICAGO: R&B superstar R. Kelly was taken into custody yesterday for failing to pay child support, just weeks after he was detained on sex abuse charges.
The singer was unable to come up with the US$161,000 he owes in payments to his ex-wife and their three children, and a judge in Chicago, where Kelly lives, ordered him arrested.
It was the latest legal setback for the 52-year-old music star who pleaded not guilty on Feb 25 to 10 counts of aggravated criminal sex abuse against four victims, three of them minors.
Kelly’s representatives say he is having financial difficulties, despite an award-winning career that once produced hits such as “I Believe I Can Fly.”
He has been the target of a boycott campaign amid mounting allegations of sexual abuse.
Kelly was prepared on Wednesday to pay US$50,000 to US$60,000 of what he owed, according to his publicist, but the judge required the full amount.
“We were coming expecting that he was gonna come and make an arrangement, but they wanted the entire amount,” Darryll Johnson told reporters at the courthouse.
Kelly, who arrived in court in a blue business suit, was “expecting to leave,” Johnson said.
Instead, he was taken into custody and escorted from the courtroom by a police officer. He will likely remain in jail until his next court hearing on March 13.
“The reason he can’t pay, as you know, he hadn’t worked in a long time. He can’t book shows he can’t do anything,” Johnson said.
Kelly spent three nights in jail last month after being arrested on the criminal sex abuse charges.
He initially was unable to arrange payment of a US$100,000 bail. His attorney said at the time that Kelly’s finances were “a mess.”
Hours before Wednesday’s hearing, CBS aired an interview with the musician – his first public comments since being indicted last month on the sex assault charges – in which he at one point seemed to succumb to his emotions.
Kelly rose from his seat, yelling and cursing at the cameras.
“I didn’t do this stuff. This not me,” Kelly told “CBS This Morning,” saying he was “fighting” for his life.
“Whether they’re old rumors, new rumours, future rumors, not true,” Kelly said.
The sex acts in the criminal case are alleged to have occurred between May 1998 and January 2010. The details of the case echoed previous accusations of sexual misconduct that have dogged the artist for the last two decades. — AFP