R. Kelly spent a second night in a row in a jail cell after he was unable to come up with the necessary $100,000 in bail money.
On Friday, a Cook County, Ill., grand jury had handed down an indictment on 10 charges of criminal sexual abuse against the singer. He turned himself in to police that night. On Saturday Chicago Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. set R. Kelly’s bond at $1 million — $250,000 for each of his alleged four victims, at least three of whom were minors at the time of the alleged crimes. R. Kelly’s attorney said that R. Kelly was unable to come up with the 10 percent sum needed to post bond.
Steven Greenberg, the R&B artist’s lawyer, said that his client’s finances are “a mess” and claimed that “he’s trying to get [the bail money] together” but that “he doesn’t have it sitting in the bank, sitting in a shoe box, sitting anywhere.” R. Kelly reportedly owes well over $100,000 in child support. He referred to himself as a “broke-ass legend” in his 19-minute-long song “I Admit” back in 2018.
Just over a week ago, lawyer Michael Avenatti, who is representing Stormy Daniels in her legal battle with President Trump, said he would provided Illinois state prosecutors with a VHS tape he says shows R. Kelly engaging in illegal sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl. Indictments were handed down days later. CNN reports it has seen the video and that it “appears to show Kelly having sex with a girl who refers to her body parts as 14 years old.”
What is described in that alleged sex tape, and what prosecutors allege in the new charging documents against R. Kelly, is similar to allegations that have dogged R. Kelly for years. He was indicted on 21 counts of child pornography in Chicago back in 2002, but was acquitted by a jury on all charges in 2008. In 2017, BuzzFeed published a report that said “parents have told police that R. Kelly is keeping women against their will in an abusive cult that’s tearing families apart.” Lifetime ran a docuseries, “Surviving R. Kelly,” in early January 2019, which covered decades of allegations against the music superstar.
Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney for Cook County, called the allegations in the docuseries “deeply deeply disturbing.” “I was sickened by the allegations. I was sickened as a survivor. I was sickened as a mother. I’m sickened as a prosecutor,” she said back in January. Foxx asked for any witnesses or victims to come forward, and her office was reportedly flooded with tips.
The 10 counts of criminal sexual abuse against R. Kelly described in the recent grand jury indictments are graphic, and allege multiple instances of forcible sex. Three of the four alleged victims were only between thirteen and sixteen years of age at the time of the incidents. Following R. Kelly’s bond hearing on Saturday, Foxx held a brief press conference where she said that R. Kelly’s alleged crimes took place in 1998, in 2003, and in 2009. She did not take any questions from the press.
