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Singer R. Kelly Indicted Over Alleged Sex With Teen Girls

Rapper R. Kelly Indicted in New York Over Alleged Sex With Girls

(Bloomberg) -- Singer R. Kelly was indicted by U.S. prosecutors on multiple charges including racketeering, kidnapping, child pornography and coercing girls and women into sexual encounters for more than two decades in New York, Connecticut, Illinois and California.

Kelly, 52, was arrested Thursday in Chicago. He appeared Friday before a federal judge after prosecutors said he posed a danger to the community and may try to flee if released. No decision was made and he remains in custody. The Grammy-award winning R&B artist is accused of engaging in illegal sexual activity with a total of 10 victims in separate indictments that were unsealed in Chicago and Brooklyn, New York.

Singer R. Kelly Indicted Over Alleged Sex With Teen Girls

The new federal cases may pose the gravest threat yet to Kelly, who was acquitted of Illinois child-pornography charges in 2008 and was indicted in February by state prosecutors in Chicago on criminal sex-abuse charges. He pleaded not guilty in that case, which is still pending.

In the Chicago federal indictment, prosecutors allege Kelly produced child pornography by videotaping multiple sexual encounters with five minors and using threats and bribes to keep the evidence from being disclosed, court records show. In Brooklyn, the government claims he led a racketeering enterprise that included his managers, bodyguards and personal assistants, using his fame to prey on girls and women. Kelly’s lawyer said he will fight the new charges.

“The purposes of the enterprise was to promote R. Kelly’s music and the R. Kelly brand to recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with Kelly,” prosecutors in New York alleged.

In exchange for absolute fealty to Kelly, “the members of the enterprise expected to receive financial opportunities and personal benefits, including increased power and status” within his group, according to one of the indictments.

Kelly was also charged in the New York case with engaging in the forced labor and coercion of victims, as well as charges he transported minors across state lines for sex. The musician may have persuaded his accusers not to testify against him, prosecutors said in a memo asking that he be held without bail. Kelly will be arraigned in Chicago on Tuesday.

Lure of Celebrity

Using Kelly’s celebrity as a lure, his employees helped recruit girls and young women to his concerts and related events around the country and overseas, then facilitated their travel, according to prosecutors in Brooklyn. After the performances, Kelly’s alleged victims were held in hotel rooms where they weren’t permitted to leave without his permission and he directed them when to eat or go to the bathroom, according to the indictment.

Kelly required his victims to call him “Daddy,” ordered them to wear baggy clothing when they weren’t accompanying him to an event and “not permitted to look at other men and instead told to keep their heads down,” according the the indictment.

“R. Kelly, together with employees and members of his entourage, engaged in a racketeering enterprise that preyed upon women and girls who attended his concerts so that the victims could be available to engage in illegal sexual activity with him at a moment’s notice,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in statement Friday. “Fame and power will not shield anyone from prosecution, particularly predators.”

In the Chicago federal case, Kelly is accused of creating sexually-explicit videos with five girls under 18. With the help of two cohorts, Kelly also paid his victims hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to conceal the existence of the videos, according to the indictment.

Kelly, who first came to the attention of child-protection authorities in Illinois almost two decades ago, was first indicted in 2002 on 21 counts of child pornography in connection with the abuse of one girl, who was 12 or 13. He was acquitted after a state trial in 2008. But on Friday, the government shed new light on what may have transpired in that case.

Buying Silence

Upon learning he was under investigation, Kelly obstructed and coerced at least three victims into falsely denying they’d had sexual relationships with the star, prosecutors said. Kelly allegedly paid $100,000 each to two girls to buy their silence and even sent a third girl and her parents “to foreign countries” so they wouldn’t be able to speak to law enforcement or testify.

“Emboldened by his fame and the lack of any real consequences for his conduct for so long, the defendant repeatedly and flagrantly used his resources to continue committing serious crimes,” Donoghue said in a memo to the court.

Kelly faces as much as 20 years in prison if convicted of racketeering and 10 years on each count of transporting a minor for sex.

Steve Greenberg, a lawyer for Kelly, said his client was arrested Thursday night while walking his dog and insisted both indictments were based on allegations that are “largely the same” as the earlier Illinois state case.

“He and his lawyers look forward to his day in court, to the truth coming out and to his vindication,” Greenberg said on Twitter.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net;Janan Hanna in Chicago at jhanna31@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net

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