R. Kelly Taken to Brooklyn Detention Center From Chicago To Await Federal Trial
After two years awaiting trial in a Chicago jail on federal child pornography, obstruction of justice and racketeering charges, embattled R&B singer R. Kelly has been moved to New York to face a jury.
The Chicago Sun Times reports that Kelly, 54, has been moved to a Brooklyn detention center ahead of his federal trial, coming in less than two months. Kelly’s move was approved by a federal judge last April, and his trial is set to begin on August 9.
Kelly is accused of running an enterprise made up of his managers, bodyguards and other employees who helped him recruit women and girls for sex. He has denied all sex traficking allegations made against him.
His federal trial is separate from his Chicago trial, where he faces 21 charges of making child pornograpgy.
Kelly’s move to New York also comes after he dropped two of his Chicago-based attorneys earlier this month. His previous attorneys, Steven Greenberg and Michael Leonard, asked to be relieved from the case due to tensions with his new attorneys, Thomas Farinella and Nicole Becker.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly, who is presiding over Kelly’s federal case, said last week that she wants to question Kelly in person about a potential conflict of interest with Becker before continuing the trial with his new legal team.
According to the Sun Times, in his two years of detention at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, Kelly lived through two coronavirus outbreaks and was attacked by a fellow inmate.
