R&B superstar R. Kelly has been
arrested on suspicion of having sex with five underage girls, recording
some of it on video tapes, and then attempting to hide the evidence, US
prosecutors said Friday.
A 13-count indictment returned Thursday in Chicago also alleged the
52-year-old singer intimidated victims and concealed evidence in a 2008
trial that ended in his acquittal of child pornography charges.
The latest charges include receiving and producing child pornography,
enticing a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and obstruction
of justice.
A separate federal indictment unsealed in New York Thursday accused Kelly of recruiting women and girls for sex.
Federal agents arrested the Grammy Award winner Thursday night while he
walked his dog in Chicago, his lawyer Steve Greenberg said in a
statement.
Two former employees of his music business -- Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown -- also were charged in the case.
The Chicago indictment alleges Kelly met the five victims in the 1990s
and had sex with them when they were under age 18, "creating numerous
explicit videos with four of them," federal prosecutors said in a
statement.
- Payments for videos -
According to the indictment, Kelly and McDavid began paying an
acquaintance hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2001 to collect the
videos in an effort to hide evidence.
When the unidentified acquaintance planned to go public with the videos,
the indictment alleges, Kelly, McDavid and others paid him $170,000 to
cancel the event.
Kelly, whose legal name is Robert Kelly, was already facing Illinois
state felony charges of aggravated sexual assault, and was out on bail
at the time of his arrest.
"The conduct alleged appears to largely be the same as the conduct
previously alleged against Mr Kelly in his current state indictment and
the former state charges that he was acquitted of," Kelly's lawyer
Greenberg said.
"Most, if not all, of the conduct alleged is decades old," he added.
Kelly has a decades-long history of abuse allegations, especially of
underage girls. In 1994 he wed his protege Aaliyah, the late R&B
star who was 15 at the time.
Kelly, then 27, had produced the teenage singer's debut album titled
"Age Ain't Nothing But a Number." Their marriage was later annulled, and
Aaliyah died in a plane crash in 2001.
Despite unsettling claims against him, the decorated musician -- known
for hits including "I Believe I Can Fly" -- has continued to perform and
maintain a solid fan base.
- 'Surviving R Kelly' -
But his fortunes began to shift after the January release of a six-part documentary called "Surviving R. Kelly."
The documentary, which alleged that Kelly engaged in sexual, mental and
physical abuse of girls and women, prompted Chicago prosecutors to
publicly seek out potential victims.
After the state charges were filed in February, Kelly spent three nights
behind bars and was released after coming up with $100,000, a tenth of
the $1 million bail set in court.
The sex acts are alleged to have occurred between May 1998 and January 2010, according to prosecutors.
If convicted of the most serious charges in that case, Kelly would face
mandatory sentences of six to 30 years in prison on each count. The
latest federal charges carry sentences that range from five to 20 years.
In a March interview, Kelly vehemently denied the charges and said he was "fighting" for his life.
"I didn't do this stuff," he told CBS News.
"Whether they're old rumors, new rumors, future rumors, not true," added
Kelly, who became upset and emotional during the interview.
He denied a report by BuzzFeed in 2017 that said he had kept women as
virtual sex slaves at homes he owns in Chicago and Atlanta.
Kelly was also briefly detained in March for failing to pay $161,000 in
child support payments he owed to his ex-wife and their three children.
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