US brings new sex-crimes charges against R. Kelly
CHICAGO – R. Kelly was arrested on federal charges that accuse him and members of his entourage of recruiting women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with the singer and paying them to cover up his crimes, including those at the center of his 2008 acquittal on child pornography charges.
Kelly, who was already facing sexual abuse charges brought by Illinois prosecutors, was indicted on allegations that he and his business manager paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and used physical abuse and blackmail to prevent girls and their relatives from providing evidence to law enforcement about his sex acts with minors and videos depicting them.
An indictment unsealed Friday in Chicago says he arranged for a girl and her parents to travel overseas so they could not talk with police prior to his 2002 indictment on 21 counts of child pornography. The pornography case stemmed from allegations that Kelly recorded a video of him engaging in sex acts with the girl, who was 12 or 13 when they met in the mid-1990s. Kelly and the girl denied they were in the video, even though the picture quality was good and witnesses testified it was them. She did not take the stand.
The indictment says the payments continued after the 2008 trial, and that Kelly also transferred the title on a luxury SUV to the girl in 2013.
Prosecutors also say Kelly went to great lengths to recover videos he made of himself with minor girls when he realized some were missing from his “collection,” including making some victims and witnesses take lie-detector tests to ensure they had returned all copies of the videos.
A separate indictment filed in the Eastern District of New York includes charges of racketeering, kidnapping, forced labor and the sexual exploitation of a child.
It says Kelly and his managers, bodyguards and other assistants picked out women and girls at concerts and other venues and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly.