R. Kelly pleads not guilty; Feds: New charges coming
R&B singer R. Kelly on Thursday pleaded not guilty to an updated federal indictment that includes child pornography charges and allegations involving a new accuser, while prosecutors said more charges alleging yet another victim are upcoming.
Kelly, 53, stood silently in orange prison garb with his hands behind his back as his attorney entered the plea on his behalf at the arraignment hearing in Chicago.
More legal trouble is on the horizon for Kelly.
The government plans to file more new charges in the coming weeks, adding another accuser, prosecutor Angel Krull said during the hearing. She didn’t elaborate except to say agents recently seized more than 100 electronic devices, including hard drives, in the case.
Agents wielding a search warrant hauled the items away from a storage facility outside Chicago where Kelly keeps some of his equipment, defense attorney Steve Greenberg told reporters after the hearing.
“We expect that they’re not going to find anything incriminating,” he said.
The possibility of new charges in yet another superseding indictment was among the reasons cited by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber to push Kelly’s April 27 trial date to Oct. 13.
The 13-count superseding indictment was unsealed last month. It is largely the same as the original indictment — which also had 13 counts — but includes a reference to a new accuser, referred to only as “Minor 6.”
The charges include child pornography, the sexual exploitation of children and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, as well as the coercion or enticement of a female.
Kelly, who has denied ever abusing anyone, faces several dozen counts of state and federal sexual misconduct charges in Illinois, Minnesota and New York, from sexual assault to heading a racketeering scheme aimed at supplying Kelly with girls.
The Grammy-award winning musician was jailed in July and has been awaiting trial at a Chicago federal jail a block from the courthouse where he attends pretrial hearings.
He has participated in hearings in his New York case by video.
The federal charges in Chicago accuse Kelly of filming himself having sex with underage girls and of paying off potential witnesses in his 2008 trial — at which he was acquitted — to get them to change their stories.
Kelly’s co-defendants in the case — exmanager Derrel McDavid and former employee Milton Brown — have also pleaded not guilty to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to retrieve pornographic videos in a bid to stave off criminal charges.
Alex Trebek marked his one-year battle against pancreatic cancer with candor about how hard it’s been and a vow to keep going.
“I’d be lying if I said the journey had been an easy one. There have been some good days, but a lot of not-so-good days,” the longtime “Jeopardy!” host said in a video message posted online. He’s joked with friends that “the cancer won’t kill me, the chemo treatments will,” Trebek said.
Moments of pain and attacks of “great depression” caused him to wonder if he could continue the fight, he said.
“But I brushed that aside quickly, because that would have been a massive betrayal, a betrayal of my wife and soul mate Jean, who has given her all to help me survive,” Trebek said. “It would have been a betrayal of other cancer patients who have looked to me as an inspiration, and a cheerleader of sorts, for the value of living and hope. And it would certainly have been a betrayal of my faith in God and the millions of prayers that have been said on my behalf.”
He hasn’t faltered in his work, continuing to host the “Jeopardy!” quiz show despite his cancer and even a nagging cold that was noticeable in recent episodes. His only on-air concession to the illness has been the wig that he acknowledged covers his treatment-induced hair loss.
Trebek, 79, recounted a recent, upbeat conversation with his oncologist. He said he was certain that “one year from now, the two of us would be sitting in his office celebrating my second anniversary of survival.”