Singer R. Kelly charged with sexual abuse
RB singer R. Kelly was criminally charged in the US state of Illinois on Friday with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse.
The American musician was charged in Cook County and ordered to appear in a Chicago court on March 8.
The singer-songwriter has long been plagued by sexual abuse allegations involving sex with minors and child pornography.
The accusations mounted last month after a six-part documentary series called Surviving R. Kelly aired on US TV channel Lifetime, in which alleged victims detail sexual misconduct.
“After 25 years of serial sexual abuse and assault of underage girls, the day of reckoning for R. Kelly has arrived,” said prominent attorney Michael Avenatti, who is representing several clients linked to the singer.
Avenatti recently said that he had provided prosecutors a videotape of the RB star having sex with a minor.
There was no immediate response from R. Kelly or his lawyers.
R. Kelly’s response in January was to post a 19-minute song to Soundcloud with the title “I admit,” which acknowledged “some mistakes and … imperfect ways,” but which also said he had been neither convicted nor arrested, and said some fans “abandon me ’cause of what you heard.”
The singer was previously charged with a sex crime in Cook County, but was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008. That case centered around a 27-minute tape alleged to show R. Kelly having sex with an underage female.
In 2017, a campaign was launched in the US calling on people to #MuteRKelly. Last year, Spotify announced it would drop the singer’s music from its editorial and algorithm playlists as part of its Hateful Content Policy.
In Germany, where R. Kelly concerts were scheduled for April, a petition was launched calling for both concerts to be canceled. The petition argued fans should not “give sexual offenders a stage.” Almost a quarter million people had signed the petition by Friday and concert tickets were still on sale.
More to come…
cw/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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