R. Kelly hit with federal indictments
NEW YORK – Accused pedophile R. Kelly allegedly forced his underaged sexual partners to call him “Daddy” – and paid their parents to say nothing. The R&B superstar, in a pair of federal indictments, was accused Friday of spending more than $600,000 in a yearslong cover-up of his sexual contact with multiple underaged girls.
Kelly, 52, paid cash, financed overseas vacations and facilitated bribes to his victims or their families to protect himself, particularly in his efforts to locate missing videotapes made of his illegal sexual sessions with the teenage girls, according to a newly unsealed Chicago indictment.
A superseding indictment filed separately a short time earlier in Brooklyn detailed Kelly’s request for his victims to refer to him “Daddy.” The detail came in court papers accusing the singer and his underlings of coercing and grooming women to sleep with the Grammy winner.
Kelly was charged with racketeering, kidnapping, forced labor and sexual exploitation of a child in New York.
“This indictment make clear that fame and power will not shield anyone from prosecutions, particularly predators who victimize vulnerable members of our community for their own sexual gratification,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue.
The 25-page, 13-count Chicago filing also accused Kelly of producing and receiving child pornography, and inducing minors to engage in sexual activity.
In one case, Kelly and his associates paid $170,000 to silence an unidentified person who planned to hold a June 2008 news conference announcing that he had located the videos involving the girls, the indictment charged. The parents of a girl who met Kelly at age 13 were allegedly sent on a foreign vacation in 2002 to make them unavailable to law enforcers investigating the singer.
The girl, identified in court papers as “Minor 1,” received a GMC Yukon Denali SUV in August 2013. Other payments and gifts were showered on the teen and her parents between 2000-15, court documents indicated.
In early 2007, Kelly and business manager Derrel Mcdavid agreed to pay $250,000 to “Minor 2” in return for a videotape showing the chart-topping entertainer with her and “Minor 1.” According to the allegations, “Minor 2” and a second individual received $100,000 apiece later that same year for returning the vile videotapes.
All involved were forced to take polygraphs to confirm claims that all of the videotapes were returned, according to the allegations.
The 18-page Brooklyn indictment accused Kelly of sexual activity with three girls under the age of 18, hiding the fact that he had a sexually transmitted disease from his sexual partners and producing child pornography.