R. Kelly hit with new federal charges in Chicago
R&B singer R. Kelly leaves the Cook County jail after posting $100,000 bond on February 25, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. Kelly was being held after turning himself in to face ten counts of aggravated sexual abuse. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
CHICAGO - An updated federal indictment against R. Kelly filed Friday in Chicago includes sex abuse allegations involving a new accuser, adding to the jailed jailed singer’s mounting legal challenges across three states.
The 26-page superseding indictment does not add more charges against Kelly. It includes multiple counts of child pornography, much like the original July indictment.
The filing refers to the new accuser as “Minor 6” but no longer includes any reference to a “Minor 2. That means there are still a total of five alleged victims in the Chicago federal case.
The indictment offers few details about the new accuser. It says she met Kelly around 1997 or 1998, when she would have been 14- or 15-years-old. It says Kelly engaged in sexual contact or sexual acts with her when she was under 18.
Kelly, 53, will be arraigned under the reworked indictment. That could happen March 5, a date set previously for a status hearing. The trial date remains April 27, though that will likely be pushed to later this year.
It’s unclear why Minor 2 no longer appears to be on the prosecutors’ list of alleged victims.
Kelly faces several dozen counts of state and federal sexual misconduct charges in Illinois, Minnesota and New York, from sexual assault to heading a racketeering scheme aimed at supplying Kelly with girls.
The Grammy Award-winner is awaiting trial at a Chicago federal jail a block from the courthouse where he attends pre-trial hearings. He has participated in hearings in his New York case by video.
The federal charges in Chicago accuse Kelly of filming himself having sex with underage girls and of paying off potential witnesses in his 2008 trial — at which he was acquitted — to get them to change their stories.
Kelly has denied ever sexually abusing anyone.