Feds fear R. Kelly Say past threats force jury to be sequestered
Federal prosecutors hope a judge will give R. Kelly the El Chapo treatment and partially sequester the jury who presides over his case.
In a court memo filed Thursday, prosecutors say the disgraced R&B singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has on numerous occasions tried to meddle in the judicial process and can’t be trusted not to do so in his Brooklyn case.
The memo asks that jurors remain anonymous and be partially sequestered for the entire trial.
A Brooklyn Federal Court jury judging the case of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera in 2017 were transported to and from the courthouse each day by armed U.S. marshals. Their identities were only known to the judge and the courtroom clerk.
In imploring the judge to provide Kelly and his team with no means of contacting jurors, prosecutors cite previous threats of violence the singer/songwriter allegedly made in connection to his court cases.
In 2018, following the filing of a civil suit against him, a lawyer for one of Kelly’s accusers received intimate photos of her client in the mail and a typed letter reading, “I assure you this would not be considered a Sunday go-to-meeting dress. The next two pictures have been cropped for the sake of not exposing her extremities to the world, yet!!!”
The memo accuses Kelly of making threats to his own friends and their families, warning them not to sympathize with his accusers.
“[Kelly] has told multiple individuals, including one as recently as 2018, that they needed to select a side: his side or the other side, and implicitly threatened that selecting the other side could result in physical harm to that person or that person’s family,” the memo reads.
Kelly, who is locked up in a federal jail in Chicago where he faces sex-trafficking charges, is charged in the Brooklyn case with racketeering for allegedly running an enterprise where women and girls were selected from the audience at his shows and then recruited as sexual partners.
He also is charged with engaging in unlawful sexual activity with three girls under the age of 18 and making child pornography in the case. In March, prosecutors added disturbing charges to the indictment against Kelly, alleging the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer knowingly infected a teen fan with herpes.
If convicted in his Brooklyn case, Kelly faces life in prison.