R. Kelly will not get bail. In a motion filed in Brooklyn on Monday, his legal team argued that he couldn’t flee due to lack of funds and a passport, per the *Chicago Tribune,* and that he’s been held under unfair conditions—that is, only one of his two formerly live-in girlfriends has been allowed to visit at a time.
“Presently, he is only allowed one unrelated person to visit,” his lawyer Steven Greenberg wrote. “In other words, although he lives and has lived with two lady friends, only one of them is allowed to be on his visiting list, and after 90 days he is required to switch. No other friends or professional colleagues are allowed to visit. That is not right.”
When the motion was argued in court on Wednesday, however, Brooklyn federal judge Ann Donnelly didn’t bite. She said that Kelly’s finances are “murky, to say the least,” and that home detention “certainly would do nothing to deter” him from intimidating witnesses.
In July a federal grand jury in Chicago indicted Kelly on 13 counts, which include “enticement of a minor and obstruction of justice, in addition to the child pornography charges,” according to the assistant United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Brooklyn federal prosecutors separately indicted him on one count of racketeering and four counts of violating the Mann Act, which “prohibits transporting people across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.” Three of the five victims in that indictment were minors at the time of the alleged abuse.
In January the Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly renewed interest in the controversy that’s surrounded the singer for the majority of his career, spanning back to the ’90s. And due process will continue at the pace of the courts: Donnelly set Kelly’s criminal trial date for May 18, 2020, Page Six reported, and she expects it to last about three weeks
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