R&B singer, R Kelly, has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse all involving underage victims in Illinois, Chicago.
Tandra Simonton, spokeswoman for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, confirmed to The Associated Press the charges had been filed against the 52-year-old Grammy winner but declined to say the specific number.
The singer, whose real name is Robert Kelly, has faced claims of sexual abuse against women for decades.
He has consistently denied any sexual misconduct.
R Kelly is one of the top-selling recording artistes of all time, with hits such as ‘I Believe I Can Fly’.
He was charged a week after Michael Avenatti, the attorney whose clients have included porn star Stormy Daniels, said he recently gave Chicago prosecutors new video evidence of the singer having sex with an underage girl. It was not immediately clear if the charges were connected to that video.
In 2008, a jury acquitted Kelly of child pornography charges over a graphic video that prosecutors said showed him having sex with a girl as young as 13. He and the young woman allegedly depicted with him denied they were in the 27-minute video, even though the picture quality was good and witnesses testified it was them, and she did not take the stand. Kelly could have gotten 15 years in prison.
The walls began closing in on Kelly more recently after the release of a BBC documentary about him last year and, last month, the multipart Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly.
Together they detailed allegations he was holding women against their will and running a “sex cult.”
