Embattled R&B singer R.Kelly, 52, was arrested in Chicago by New York police detectives and investigators from the Department of Homeland Security Thursday night while walking his dog.
“The counts include child porn, enticement of a minor and obstruction of justice,” U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Joseph Fitzpatrick said, according to the Associated Press.
This marks the second time he has been taken into custody this year and he’s currently being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago per The Federal Bureau of Prisons website and will be arraigned later today. Darrell Johnson, his crisis manager, and publicist said that Kelly was looking forward to his day in court.
“
When you’re innocent of charges — and Mr. Kelly has declared his innocence — in America, you know and I know, that you’re innocent until proven guilty,” Johnson said, according to NBC News. “And he’s said many times that he’s innocent.”
A
five-count indictment against Kelly was unsealed earlier today in the Eastern District of New York. He is set to appear in federal court in Brooklyn at a later date, a source with that district’s U.S. attorney’s office told CNN. He has been charged with racketeering and sex-related crimes against women and girls.
Earlier this year he was accused of forcing oral penetration with two underage victims, one from 1998 until 2001, and the other from 2009 to 2010. He is also charged with forced sexual penetration with another underage victim from 1998 until 1999, and with threatening and forcing himself on another victim by ejaculating on her in 2003, according to Chicago’s Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
Then in May, prosecutors added
11 additional counts of sexual assault and abuse. The new charges are related to one of four alleged victims from the February indictment, according to his attorney Steve Greenberg. Kelly
pleaded not guilty to these charges and was free on a $1 million bond since February.
Then in 2019, Lifetime aired the six-part documentary,
Surviving R.Kelly, which profiled some of the reported victims and their families, renewing interest in his alleged crimes. He was later
interviewed by Gayle King, an exchange that made headlines after the charges were made.“
I didn’t do this stuff. This is not me. I’m fighting for my fucking life. Y’all killin’ me with this shit,” Kelly said.
