BY IKENNA OBIOHA
American Rhythm and Blues singer, Robert Sylvester Kelly otherwise known as R Kelly was on Friday charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse by the Cook County’s State Attorney at Illinois, Chicago, United States of America.
52- year-old Roberts who have faced a series of accusations bothering on sexual abuse of women and underaged girls for about two decades is expected in court in two weeks.
The charges against Kelly come one month after the airing of Lifetime’s documentary Surviving R. Kelly that sheds light on the singer’s alleged sexual misconduct against women. In recent developments, it has been confirmed that 9 out of the 10 count involved females in the age range of 14 to 17, thus making it a class 2 felony in Illinois. If convicted, the singer, songwriter, record producer, and former professional basketball player faces three to seven years in prison on each charge. One of the victims is the subject of four different counts. There are a sum of four alleged victims, who were aged 13 to 16 at the time of their reported assaults victims.
The precursor of these charges stems from discovered sex tapes of Kelly with an alleged 14 year of girl by lawyer Michael Avenatti. The tape was presented in a grand jury which convened last week for the purpose of critically analysing the contents of the video. In it, R. Kelly was said to have, in the act of sexual intercourse, referred to the genitals and other body parts of the girl as being 14. The girl also makes this reference to herself.
The charges come shortly after two women Latresa Scaff, 40, and Rochelle Washington, 39, on Thursday through a press conference organised by their lawyer Gloria Allred, made claims that R. Kelly sexually abused them in mid-1990s as minors in a threesome act.