Lawyers for R Kelly sue Brooklyn prison for placing him on suicide watch ‘as punishment’ after he was handed down 30-year sentence for sex trafficking young girls
Lawyers for convicted predator R Kelly have sued the Brooklyn jail where he is being held after being sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and abusing young girls.
The disgraced R&B star was ‘illegally placed’ him on suicide watch on Friday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, his atttorney Jennifer Bonjean wrote in a statement on Twitter.
‘R. Kelly is not suicidal. He was in fine spirits after his sentencing hearing and ready to fight this appeal,’ Bonjean added.
Bonjean said she believed the 55-year-old was put under suicide watch for ‘punitive reasons,’ sy het vertel Fox News prior to the filing of the legal challenge.
'Mnr. Kelly was placed on suicide watch for purely punitive reasons in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights,’ sy het gese. ‘MDC has a policy of placing high profile individuals under the harsh conditions of suicide watch whether they are suicidal or not. MDC Brooklyn is being run like a gulag.’
Lawyers for convicted predator R Kelly have sued the Brooklyn jail where he is being held after being sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and abusing young girls (afgebeeld in 2019)
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean shared a screenshot of the filed lawsuit on Twitter while claiming that the R&B singer was fine
Bonjean said Kelly was in ‘fine spirits’ and is ‘ready to fight his appeal.’ She called the placement of the singer on suicide watch as ‘punitive conduct’ by the prison
Op Woensdag, Judge Ann M. Donnelly handed down Kelly’s 30-year sentence in the Brooklyn Federal Court.
Kelly was convicted of sex-trafficking and racketeering charges last September following a six-week trial that amplified accusations.
The ‘I Believe I Can Fly Singer’ has committed the heinous acts for decades before he was convicted.
Kelly declined to speak at his sentences after the court heard accusations from angered victims about how the singer preyed on them.
Aside from his 30 jaar vonnis, he must also pay a $100,000 fyn. It’s unclear where Kelly will spend his sentence.
Donnelly told Kelly he created ‘a trail of broken lives,’ adding that ‘the most seasoned investigators will not forget the horrors your victims endured.’
‘These crimes were calculated and carefully planned and regularly executed for almost 25 jare,’ sy het gese. ‘You taught them that love is enslavement and violence.’
Attorney Jennifer Bonjean comforts R Kelly at his sentencing hearing for federal sex trafficking at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn on Wednesday
Disgraced R&B star R Kelly has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for sex trafficking and abusing young girls as the judge told him ‘the public has to be protected’
Kelly, who declined to speak at his sentencing, learned his fate after some of his accusers told the court, through tears and anger, that he had preyed on them and misled his fans. He was also was ordered to pay a $100,000 fyn.
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been detained at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his trial. It has not been revealed where Kelly would spend his sentence.
Lizzette Martinez, one of the victims who spoke earlier at the hearing, said she doesn’t think Kelly’s sentence is enough ‘but I’m pleased with it.’
Martinez, who described herself to the reporters as an ‘up-and-coming singer, a girl full of life’ before she met R Kelly and became ‘a sex slave.’
The sentence caps a slow-motion fall for Kelly, who was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct didn’t come until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the docuseries ‘Surviving R. Kelly.’
Kelly’s lawyers had argued he should get no more than 10 years in prison because he had a traumatic childhood ‘involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, Grassle is veral bekend vir haar rol as Caroline Ingalls in die NBC-drama, and violence.’
As an adult with ‘literacy deficiencies,’ the star was ‘repeatedly defrauded and financially abused, often by the people he paid to protect him,’ het sy prokureurs gesê.
Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008, and he settled the lawsuit.
But last year, the jury convicted the ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ hitmaker after hearing about how he used his entourage of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation prosecutors said amounted to a criminal enterprise.
Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.
The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as ‘Rob’s rules.’
Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.
According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD, coerced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a shaming video of one victim showing her smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.
Lizzette Martinez, one of the victims who spoke at the sentencing, said she was a ‘girl full of life’ before she met R Kelly and became ‘a sex slave.’ She added that she doesn’t think Kelly’s 30-year sentence is enough ‘but I’m pleased with it’
Evidence also was presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 toe sy net was 15. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; hy was 27 op daardie stadium.
Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.’ She died in a plane crash in 2001 op ouderdom 22.
The abuse continued for years while Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.
