Musician R. Kelly, who has been associated with accusations of abusing young women for more than two decades, has been indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse — a class 2 felony — involving four alleged victims, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said Friday.
A warrant has been issued for Kelly’s arrest, Chicago police say. The charges handed up in an indictment from a grand jury span from 1998 to 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times said.
The minors involved in the case were between 13 and 16, prosecutors allege, according to the Sun-Times.
A grand jury was convened in Cook County earlier this month in connection with new allegations against Kelly, two sources close to the case told CNN.
That came on the heels of attorney Michael Avenatti announcing he had handed over to the State’s Attorney’s Office a videotape that he said showed Kelly having sex with an underage girl.
Steve Greenberg, an attorney for Kelly, told CNN earlier this month he had not been notified of a grand jury. After being asked about the new tape, he said separately he and his colleagues were unaware of any new information involving Kelly.
CNN has seen the VHS tape that appears to show Kelly having sex with a girl who refers to her body parts as 14 years old.
The newly unearthed footage, which lasts 42 minutes and 45 seconds, is clear and explicit.
What is on the video mirrors some of the alleged acts for which Kelly was arrested in a child pornography case in 2002 when he was 35 and then acquitted six years later.
Kelly has been associated with accusations of abuse, manipulation and inappropriate encounters with girls and young women.
He has been sued by multiple women accusing him of having sex with them when they were underage. He has strongly denied the accusations, and most cases, with the exception of the trial where he was acquitted, have been settled out of court.
And while he is one of the most successful R&B acts in history, there has been a growing movement against him, including the #MuteRKelly campaign to stop his music being played.
In July 2017, BuzzFeed published an explosive article outlining allegations that Kelly was holding a group of adult women against their will as part of what some of their parents said was a “cult.”
Joycelyn Savage, one of the young women, denied those claims and asked her parents, via a video shared with TMZ, to stop speaking out about her relationship with Kelly.
In January, the release of a docuseries called “Surviving R. Kelly” on Lifetime television helped boost the public campaign against him.
In that series, women said they were kept in abusive sexual relationships.
