R. Kelly back in Chicago’s federal jail ahead of trial next month
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After being held for more than a year in Brooklyn, Chicago-born R&B star R. Kelly was back at the federal jail in the Loop on Wednesday in advance of his second criminal trial set for next month.
Records show Kelly, 55, was moved Tuesday from Brooklyn to the Metropolitan Correctional Center on West Van Buren Street, where he first landed more than three years ago after his arrest on separate federal indictments filed in Chicago and New York.
Just two weeks ago, Kelly was sentenced to a 30-year prison term for his racketeering conviction in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. He’s appealing both the jury’s verdict and the judge’s sentence.
Now, Kelly faces yet another legal hurdle as jury selection is set to begin Aug. 15 at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where he is accused of conspiring with two former associates to rig his 2008 child pornography case in Cook County and hide years of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
Four other indictments alleging sexual abuse by Kelly brought in Cook County in February 2019 have yet to be scheduled for trial.
Meanwhile, Kelly’s time behind bars, both in Chicago and New York, has been tumultuous. In his earlier days at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, die-hard fans would demonstrate outside the downtown jail. That reportedly spurred prison authorities to put the building on lockdown.
Enraged by such a lockdown, fellow detainee Jeremiah Shane Farmer slipped into Kelly’s cell in August 2020 and beat him repeatedly in the head, according to records. Farmer stopped only after a security officer pepper-sprayed him.
In a handwritten court filing, Farmer, a Latin King gang member who was sentenced to life for his role in a 1999 double murder, later said he attacked Kelly “due to the most blatant corruption in Farmer’s case and being (on) lockdown for Robert Kelly protest.”
Kelly suffered a serious concussion that left him with headaches and pain for months afterward, his attorneys said.
While being held in New York, Kelly was diagnosed with COVID-19, according to his attorneys. He also was placed on suicide watch following his sentencing — a move his attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, alleged was punitive rather than rooted in any real concern for his mental health.
The suicide watch was lifted several days later, court records show.
