Jailed Latin King says he attacked R. Kelly to expose government corruption
A Latin King street gang member convicted of a racketeering conspiracy involving two 1999 Northwest Indiana murders claimed in court records this week to be the detainee who assaulted R&B singer R. Kelly in Chicago’s federal jail last month.
Jeremiah Shane Farmer, 39, wrote that “the government made me attack” R. Kelly and that he did so “in hopes of getting spotlight attention and world news notice to shed light on” alleged government corruption.
Farmer’s writings appear in a six-page document filed Tuesday with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Records show Farmer is representing himself and is still detained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Kelly is also being held. Lawyers who recently represented Farmer did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Steve Greenberg, one of Kelly’s defense lawyers, confirmed to the Chicago SunTimes that Farmer is the detainee alleged to have attacked Kelly. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Hammond, Indiana, declined to comment.
Kelly has been locked up for more than a year while awaiting trial on child pornography and obstruction of justice charges in Chicago, as well as a racketeering indictment in Brooklyn. His lawyers have tried for months to get him out of jail, and Greenberg wrote in a court filing earlier this week that Kelly had been attacked by a fellow detainee who has the phrase “F--- The Feds” tattooed on his face.
A photograph of Farmer shows many tattoos on his face, including tattoos of teardrops. Farmer is alleged to have once made the claim that two colored-in teardrop tattoos represented people he had killed, according to court records.
Greenberg also wrote in his filing that the detainee attacked Kelly because protests supportive of Kelly outside the MCC have caused lockdowns within the facility.
Farmer’s filing includes a one-page Bureau of Prisons incident report about the attack against Kelly. It says the attack happened around 9:45 a.m. Aug. 26. It said a prison employee had been trying to meet with Farmer at that time. The employee wrote that Farmer “left the office against my order to stay.”
The prison employee followed as Farmer entered a section of the jail to which he had not been assigned, then heard a disturbance coming from a cell, according to the report.
When a unit officer opened the door, the report said the prison employee spotted Farmer “who appeared to be on top of ” Kelly “on the lower bunk in the cell.”
“Inmate Farmer appeared to be punching inmate Kelly repeatedly in the head and torso,” the prison employee wrote.
The prison employee used pepper spray to end the assault, the report said. Farmer wrote in his court filing that he wound up in the MCC’s solitary housing unit following the attack.
Farmer also claimed that a mental health professional at the MCC told him, “You don’t want to assault Kelly, if you did, you would have done it.” Farmer wrote that he “said some disrespect back” and was told “go do it then.” That’s when he said he “stormed out” and attacked Kelly despite being told to stop.
Records show Farmer was convicted last year of a racketeering conspiracy that involved the June 25, 1999, murders of Marion Lowry, 74, and Harvey Siegers, 67, at their Hammond business, Calumet Auto Rebuilders. The feds say the men were beaten to death with a hammer.
Hammond police had previously charged and arrested Farmer for the murders, records show. Prosecutors have said that Farmer at the time asked detectives, “Do you think I did it?” and asked whether it was a death-penalty case.
“I want lethal injection,” Farmer allegedly said. “I may as well say I’m guilty and get it over with.”