Just two weeks after he was sentenced in New York to 30 years in prison for racketeering and sex trafficking, R Kelly is back in a Chicago federal jail awaiting his second criminal trial next month.
The 55-year-old disgraced R&B star was transferred Tuesday from where he was being held Brooklyn to Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Kelly was first held at the correctional after he was indicted on federal charges in Chicago and New York in 2019. Jury selection for his federal trial in Chicago is set to begin Aug. 15.
He is accused of allegedly conspiring with two associates to rig a child pornography case in Cook County in 2008 and hide a slew of sexual assault allegations against minors.
Kelly was convicted in 2021 in New York on charges that he sexually abused young fans, including children, in a systematic scheme that prosecutors alleged went on for decades.
On June 29, Judge Ann M. Donnelly handed down Kelly’s 30-year sentence in Brooklyn Federal Court. Kelly had appealed the jury’s verdict and the judge’s sentence
Attorneys for Kelly claimed he was placed on suicide watch as a form of punishment by the US Attorney’s Office, but prosecutors pushed back, arguing Kelly’s ‘life circumstances undoubtedly [brought] emotional distress.’
Disgraced R&B star R Kelly was transferred Tuesday from the federal jail in Brooklyn to the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Above, Kelly is pictured during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago in 2019
Kelly was first held at the correctional after he was indicted on federal charges in Chicago and New York in 2019
Jury selection for Kelly’s trial in Chicago will begin in a month at the Dirksen US Courthouse.
Chicago is Kelly’s hometown and where many of his accusers live, so interest is expected to be especially intense.
Kelly faces charges that he and two co-defendants fixed his state trial in 2008, with prosecutors saying Kelly arranged for a girl and her parents to travel overseas to prevent them from talking with police prior to his 2002 indictment and later instructed them to lie to a grand jury about the case.
He was indicted in 2002 in Illinois state court on 21 counts of child pornography but was acquitted six years later by a jury.
He also has a solicitation case in Hennepin County, Minn.
Before being transferred on Tuesday, Kelly spent more than a year being held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center. Immediately following his sentencing, he was placed on suicide watch.
The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn filed court papers saying Kelly remained on suicide watch ‘for his own safety,’ following a psychological assessment.
Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, filed a lawsuit alleging prison officials placed Kelly on suicide watch ‘solely for punitive purposes and because of his status as a high-profile inmate.’
Bonjean argued the measure was in violation of Kelly’s Eighth Amendment rights as he had no thoughts of harming himself. The suicide watch was eventually lifted.
Prosecutors pushed back on R Kelly’s claims that he was placed on suicide watch as a form of punishment last week after a judge sentenced him to 30 years behind bars for sexually abusing young girls. Above, Kelly pictured during his sentencing on June 29
Kelly’s attorney filed a lawsuit alleging prison officials placed him on suicide watch at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (pictured) ‘solely for punitive purposes and because of his status as a high-profile inmate’
Assistant US Attorney Melanie Speight rejected the claims on Saturday, arguing Kelly’s ‘current life circumstances undoubtedly bring emotional distress’
Kelly’s sentence in New York also included a $100,000 fine.
He was convicted of sex-trafficking and racketeering charges last September, following a six-week trial that amplified the accusations.
He has denied wrongdoing and plans to appeal his conviction.
On June 29, Judge Ann M. Donnelly handed down Kelly’s 30-year sentence in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The ‘I Believe I Can Fly Singer’ allegedly committed the heinous acts for decades before he was convicted.
Kelly declined to speak at his sentences, after the court heard accusations from angered victims about how the singer preyed on them.
During the sentencing, the judge said Kelly created ‘a trail of broken lives,’ adding that ‘the most seasoned investigators will not forget the horrors your victims endured.
‘These crimes were calculated and carefully planned and regularly executed for almost 25 years,’ she said. ‘You taught them that love is enslavement and violence.’
Lizzette Martinez, one of the victims at the June hearing, said she doesn’t think Kelly’s sentence is enough ‘but [was] pleased with it.’
Martinez, who described herself to the reporters as an ‘up-and-coming singer, a girl full of life’ before she met R Kelly and became ‘a sex slave.’
The sentence caps a slow-motion fall for Kelly, who was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct didn’t come until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the docuseries ‘Surviving R Kelly’
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean comforts R Kelly at his sentencing hearing for federal sex trafficking at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn on June 29
Lizzette Martinez, one of the victims who spoke at the sentencing, said she was a ‘girl full of life’ before she met R Kelly and became ‘a sex slave.’ She added that she doesn’t think Kelly’s 30-year sentence is enough ‘but I’m pleased with it’
Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct didn’t come until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the docuseries ‘Surviving R. Kelly.’
Kelly’s lawyers argued he should get no more than 10 years in prison because he had a traumatic childhood ‘involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence.’
As an adult with ‘literacy deficiencies,’ the star was ‘repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him,’ his lawyers said.
Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor.
Kelly was convicted after the jury heard how he used his entourage of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation prosecutors said amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.
The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as ‘Rob’s rules.’
Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.
According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD, coerced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a shaming video of one victim showing her smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.
Evidence was also presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15.
Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.
Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.’ She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.
The abuse continued for years while Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.