A judge ordered R. Kelly to be jailed on a $1 million bond Saturday, $250,000 for each of his four alleged sex abuse victims.
Kelly, 52, spent the night in jail after turning himself over to authorities Friday night. He was taken into custody on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against four victims, including three minors.
The R&B singer later appeared in court, after which his attorney told reporters in a press conference that his legal team “will start fighting the charges.”
“We haven’t seen any reason to believe that these allegations are credible,” Kelly’s lawyer said, as shown in video from ABC News. “I heard about the narrative of them for the first time today, the same time all of you did, and I can tell you that, in listening to it, there are certainly problems with the cases.”
The bond, according to the Associated Press, requires Kelly to post $100,000 in order to be released.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx described the incidents of the alleged abuse that took place between May 26, 1998, and Jan. 31, 2010 prior to Kelly’s court appearance.
During the hearing on Saturday afternoon, a prosecutor told the judge that Kelly met one of the four alleged victims at the singer’s 2008 trial on child pornography charges, of which he was acquitted that same year. The two were said to have met when Kelly gave her an autograph. The abuse allegedly occurred between 2009 and 2010, and the accuser gave authorities a shirt with Kelly’s DNA on it, according to the prosecutor.
These new charges against Kelly follow Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly docuseries, featuring numerous sexual assault allegations. There are also reports that a new video tape surfaced showing Kelly having sex with an underage girl, which would amount to statutory rape.
Kelly has constantly denied any wrongdoing over the years as allegations trailed his career. Steve Greenberg, Kelly’s main attorney, told reporters after Kelly’s arrest (via AP) that one of the charges stems from the 2008 charges relating to a video of the singer allegedly peeing on an underage girl. (Both Kelly and the girl denied it was them on the tape.) “Double jeopardy should bar that case,” Greenberg said. “He won that case.”
In the court of public opinion, the #MuteRKelly movement, a campaign to take his music out of circulation and prevent him from further profiting off his songs, continues.
Lady Gaga notably apologized for ever working with Kelly and the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer was reportedly dropped by his longtime label, Sony’s RCA Records.
Attorney Michael Avenatti recently tweeted that he gave a previously unseen tape of Kelly committing sexual acts with a minor to Chicago authorities. Reports of the tape persisted through an article from The New Yorker reporter Jim DeRogatis, a longtime Kelly reporter, even as Greenberg said neither he nor Kelly had been contacted by Avenatti regarding any such tape.
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