SHOW AND CELL
TV spurs lawman to take down R. Kelly
A Homeland Security agent in New York City got the idea to push for a federal probe into R. Kelly — while watching a TV show.
“It was an agent in our trafficking unit who was watching that Lifetime show ‘Surviving R. Kelly,’ ” said a source at Homeland Security Investigations, the federal agency’s arm that helps probe crimes committed across state lines.
“It was just from watching these interviews in this documentary’’ in January that the agent realized “this is so much bigger than [what the suspect] has previously been charged with,’’ the source said.
An ensuing seven-month investigation led to racketeering and sex-trafficking charges against the accused pedophile in a Brooklyn federal indictment unsealed Friday — the same day he was slapped with similar raps out of Chicago.
Both indictments represent the first federal charges against Kelly and as such, carry higher potential prison sentences — more than enough to put him behind bars for life if convicted.
“This was organized crime,’’ the head of HSI’s New York City office, Special-Agent-in-Charge Angel Melendez, told The Post. “The racketeering charge . . . he’s facing 20 years just for that count.”
In court papers Friday, the feds alleged that the 52-yearold Grammy-winning R&B singer ran what amounted to a sickening cross-country sex ring designed to satiate Kelly’s taste for young girls.
Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, and his underlings would troll for underage victims and young women at concerts and events.
The victims were then allegedly given special wristbands and shepherded backstage or to other areas where they could be inspected by Kelly.
If they met with his approval, they would be lured back to where he was staying and coerced into having sex with him — while being recorded on video camera, the documents stated.
The girls were ordered to call the singer “Daddy” and needed permission to go to the bathroom or eat, according to the Brooklyn indictment.
They also were “required to wear baggy clothing” when not with Kelly, and “not permitted to look at other men and instead told to keep their heads down,” the documents said.
Brooklyn prosecutors detailed allegations involving five “Jane Does” — including a 19-year-old who they say contracted a venereal disease from Kelly during unprotected sex.
Kelly told her “that if she was really 15 or 16 years old, she could tell him, suggesting he would have preferred [her] to be younger,” according to the papers.
In the Chicago documents, prosecutors said Kelly met one of his victims when she was just 12 or 13, and the pair were making sex videos within a year or two.
The girl is among five alleged victims of Kelly involved in the Chicago indictment. The victims all met the singer in the late 1990s, and many were later paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn over copies of the sex tapes and otherwise keep their mouths shut, authorities said.
Kelly faces racketeering charges as part of the fivecount Brooklyn indictment. In Chicago, he faces another 13 counts, including child pornography, enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and obstruction of justice.
It’s unclear if any of the women involved in the new charges against Kelly appeared on “Surviving R. Kelly.’’
The “I Believe I Can Fly’’ singer was nabbed Thursday night by Homeland and NYPD officers as he walked his Pomeranian, Believe, outside his home in Chicago, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
He made a brief appearance in Chicago federal court and was ordered held in jail at least through the weekend.
The singer wore an orange jail jumpsuit as he stood in front of the judge with his hands behind his back and replied, “Yes, Ma’am’’ when asked a question during the 15-minute hearing.
The hearing was supposed to determine when Kelly would be transferred to New York to face federal sex-crime charges there. A decision was postponed at least until Monday.
He also was set to appear in Chicago court Tuesday on the charges there.
It was the second time this year Kelly was taken into custody. He was busted in Chicago in February on 10 counts of sex abuse. Nearly a dozen more counts were added against him in May.
He was acquitted of childpornography raps in 2008.
Kelly’s lawyer, Steve Greenberg, called the latest charges same old, same old.
“I’m amazed he hasn’t had a complete nervous breakdown,” Greenberg said of his client. “This is the worst case of piling-on I’ve ever seen.
“They can say whatever they want, I haven’t seen any evidence yet.”