A tense mood rented the air after a RnB singer was mentioned to have a case answer, R Kelly has been arrested after handing himself in to police to face 10 charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
It was expected the 52-year-old singer would be held overnight and appear in court on Saturday where he will be given the option of posting bail.
The Grammy award winning R&B star, whose legal name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has faced allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls for decades. He has since denied any wrongdoing.
R Kelly handed himself in to the authorities this evening after being charged with aggravated sexual abuse against four alleged victims.The singer left his apartment surrounded by members of his entourage and flanked by security guards.
He was driven to the station in a dark-coloured van with heavily-tinted rear windows. The vehicle pulled up outside the precinct about 8.15pm and a security detail for Kelly kept reporters and cameramen at arms’ length as he exited the side door.
Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted a short time later that R Kelly was under arrest.R Kelly had previously said he was “shell-shocked” by the charges and was looking forward to clearing his name in court.
The 52-year-old was charged in a 10-count Cook County Circuit Court indictment handed down two months after the debut of a six-hour documentary series on the Lifetime television network in which multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct and abuse.
The R&B superstar’s attorney Steven Greenberg earlier in the evening tweeted that Kelly would be turning himself in to Chicago police before midnight. Greenberg previously said the Lifetime series was a “complete fabrication” and that there was no evidence to support the allegations against his client.
At a news conference on Friday after the charges were detailed in a court filing, the Cook County state’s attorney, Kimberly Foxx, said three of the four victims Kelly is accused of sexually abusing between 1998 and 2010 were under age 17 at the time of the assaults.
Later on Friday, attorney Michael Avenatti, who has represented porn star Stormy Daniels in a legal battle with President Donald Trump, told a separate news conference he has been retained by two people who he said were victims, as well as two parents and two “whistleblowers” from Kelly’s inner circle.
Avenatti said his firm had uncovered a 40-minute videotape shot in the late 1990s allegedly showing Kelly performing sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl.
Avenatti said he had given the tape to prosecutors.Chicago prosecutors have not said if that footage was part of their case against Kelly.