R&B star held on 13 charges including sex abuse
BY RECORD REPORTER reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk SINGER R Kelly has been arrested on charges including child pornography and enticement of a minor.
Kelly, 52, was arrested on a 13-count indictment which included alleged obstruction of justice.
He was taken into custody in Chicago at about 7pm.
Kelly is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in the city.
“The counts include child porn, enticement of a minor and obstruction of justice,” said Joseph Fitzpatrick, of the US attorney’s office.
The R&B singer already faces sex-related charges in Illinois involving four women, three of whom were minors when the alleged abuse occurred. He pled not guilty to those charges and was bailed.
On May 30, prosecutors added 11 more sex-related counts against him, involving one of the women who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was under age.
A date for formal reading of the charges has not been set.
Kelly has faced mounting legal troubles this year after Lifetime aired a documentary, Surviving R Kelly, which revisited allegations of sexual abuse of girls.
The series followed the BBC’s R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes, released in 2018, that alleged the singer was holding women against their will and running a “sex cult”.
Soon after the release of the Lifetime documentary, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx said her office had been inundated with calls about the allegations in the documentary.
Kelly avoided prison after similar allegations were made more than a decade ago.
A jury in 2008 acquitted him of child pornography charges stemming from a videotape, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, allegedly showing Kelly having sex with a minor.