R. Kelly's Attorney Files Motion Asking For Singer To Be Granted Bail
CHICAGO (CBS)-- R. Kelly's attorney Steve Greenberg filed a motion Thursday asking again for Kelly to be granted bail as he awaits trial on federal indictments in Chicago and New York.
Greenberg argued Kelly isn't a flight risk and won't interfere with the investigation.
Prosecutors told the judge in July that if Kelly got out again, he would have the opportunity to pay off or intimidate victims, their families and other people with knowledge of his actions.
Kelly is currently being held without bond on his Chicago charges. He is being transported to New York for his federal case.
Kelly faces federal charges in Chicago accusing him of producing and receiving child pornography, obstruction of justice and coercing minors to engage in sex.
The charges also include allegations he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to recover tapes of him sexually abusing the girl at the center of his 2008 child pornography trial and coerced the victim to lie about what happened.
Greenberg called the allegations against R Kelly "As stale as used gym socks."
Kelly was scheduled to appear in federal court in New York, for arraignment on a separate case charging him with racketeering, transporting for prostitution and coercion or enticement to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Federal prosecutors in New York have said Kelly and his managers, bodyguards and other employees acted as a criminal enterprise to recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity with Kelly. Kelly and his enterprise would pick out women and girls who attended his concerts and other events; and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly. He would later hold them against their will, according to the feds.
Once the women and girls Kelly had picked started staying with him, he and his employees would set rules his victims had to follow, including not leaving their rooms without Kelly's permission, even to eat or go to the bathroom; not looking at other men; to wear baggy clothing whenever they weren't with him; demanding absolute commitment to Kelly; and calling the singer "Daddy."
Kelly allegedly coerced some of the girls he'd abused to engage in sexually explicit conduct on video, which he later had shipped across state lines. The feds also said he didn't inform his victims that he had a sexually transmitted disease.
Kelly was also charged with 11 counts of sexual assault in Cook County in May. The charges are more serious than the ones that were leveled against him in February.
Kelly pleaded not guilty to these charges in a June court hearing.
The May charges follow earlier allegations the singer sexually assaulted four females, three of them children. These latest charges in the case center on one of those victims, identified as JP.
