Last week, R. Kelly was arrested last week in Chicago on 13 federal charges and, according to TMZ, the arrest came after the R&B singer’s ex-employees turned over 20 sex tapes allegedly showing various sexual acts with minors.
What We Know:
- Gerald Griggs, the attorney representing Joycelyn Savage’s family, revealed that the tapes were turned over to prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois prior to Kelly’s arrest. Prosecutors then shared the tapes with a grand jury to get the singer on a 13-count indictment.
- According to CNN, prosecutors said Kelly had been paying thousands of dollars to recover the tapes since 2001. Kelly also allegedly forced his team to take polygraph tests to prove they didn’t have the tapes.
- Last month, a former employee testified in front of a grand jury saying that R. Kelly treated the tapes like trophies. An ex-employee also admitted to recording several of these encounters.
- Homeland Security Special Agent-in-Charge Angel Melendez said Kelly used his fame, and with help from his employees, to lure in young girls. ”R. Kelly’s Enterprise was not only engaged in music; as alleged, for two decades the enterprise at the direction of R. Kelly preyed upon young women and teenagers whose dreams of meeting a superstar, soon turned into a nightmare of rape, child pornography, and forced labor.”
- Kelly is facing another 5-counts filed by the Eastern District of New York, for racketeering, kidnapping, forced labor and the sexual exploitation of a child. The indictments date back to 1999.
The singer will remain in federal custody until his court hearing in front of a Brooklyn federal grand jury on Tuesday. Prosecutors are moving to not grant Kelly bail.
