Prosecutors Ask To Bring Up New, ‘Relevant’ Accusations in R. Kelly
Written by SOURCE on July 24, 2021
Federal prosecutors asked for a judge’s permission on Friday to share new allegations against R. Kelly during his upcoming sex trafficking trial in Brooklyn, arguing that they are “directly relevant to and inextricably intertwined with the evidence of the charged crimes.”
The allegations, according to NPR, include a 17-year-old boy being sexually abused, teenage girls and women being abused as far back as 1991, physical abuse and bribery.
Kelly’s indictment in New York includes six alleged victims and was filed in March 2020, as the new filing, which includes “20 Jane Does and two John Does,” alleges that Kelly had sexual encounters with and a 17-year-old boy and directed him to have sexual encounters with others after meeting him at a Chicago McDonald’s. Kelly then allegedly tried to start a sexual relationship with the boy’s teenage friend, before doing so years later, the filing claims, and forced women (and minors) to have sex with him as well.
Prosecutors are also alleging that Kelly had someone pay an Illinois state employee $500 in 1994 to make a fake ID for Aaliyah—who was 15 at the time—to marry her because he thought “she could not then be forced to testify against him in court” as he thought she was pregnant, NPR reports.
Allegations of threats and psychological abuse, hush money and bribery are also included in the filing. Kelly has two sets of federal charges against him in New York and Illinois, and is facing a total of 22 federal criminal charges.
