R&B singer R. Kelly made an appearance in a Chicago courtroom Wednesday — to plead not guilty to criminal charges in New York.
The unusual arrangement played out nearly two weeks after a new federal indictment in Brooklyn accused Kelly of scheming with others to pay for a fake ID for an unnamed female a day before he married the late singer Aaliyah in 1994.
At the time, Aaliyah was 15 years old.
The federal judge presiding over the New York case agreed to let Kelly appear for an arraignment Wednesday by video link. The singer, wearing an orange jumpsuit with his legs shackled, made his appearance from a courtroom in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Kelly stood beside his lawyer, Steve Greenberg, with his hands clasped behind his back. He addressed the judge directly through the sometimes garbled video link — saying “good afternoon ma’am,” — and Greenberg entered Kelly’s plea denying the new charges.
Kelly has been held in Chicago’s downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center since his arrest in July. In Chicago, he faces child pornography and obstruction of justice charges, with a trial set for April. He faces a separate racketeering case in New York, where a trial has been set for May.
Contributing: Associated Press
