CHICAGO � R&B superstar R. Kelly pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he sexually abused four victims, three of them underage, over a span of a dozen years.
Kelly, clad in a bright orange jail uniform and clasping his hands behind his back, looked on as his attorney, Steven Greenberg, entered the plea on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Cook County Associate Judge Lawrence Flood was randomly assigned to oversee the hot-button case earlier Monday.
Among the sordid allegations against Kelly: He solicited an underage girl outside his 2008 criminal trial and later sexually abused her; carried on a yearlong sexual relationship with a girl he'd met in 1998 when she was celebrating her Sweet 16 birthday; tried to force oral sex on his 24-year-old hairdresser in 2003; and videotaped himself having sex with a young girl at his home in Olympia Fields in the late 1990s.
Prosecutors alleged Kelly sexually abused his hairdresser while he was free on bond on then-pending child pornography charges. In a sensational trial in 2008, six years after he was first charged, Kelly was acquitted of charges alleging he filmed himself having sex with his goddaughter, a girl estimated to have been as young as 13.
Kelly spent the last two nights in custody at Cook County Jail, unable to post a six-figure bond over the weekend.
Following his indictment Friday, Kelly surrendered to Chicago police shortly after 8 p.m. at the Central District police station at 18th and State streets, where he spent that night in lockup. On Saturday, he was ordered held on $1 million. He must post 10 percent _ $100,000 _ to be released from Cook County Jail.
Kelly, who has been dogged for years by accusations of sexual misconduct of underage girls and women, was charged Friday in four separate indictments.
The singer, 52, whose legal name is Robert Kelly, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Each of the 10 Class 2 felony counts carry a maximum of seven years in prison upon conviction but could also result in probation.
Friday's charges come in the wake of reporting in Buzzfeed and The New Yorker by Chicago-based journalist Jim DeRogatis and after damning allegations in a recent Lifetime documentary series.
Citing the "deeply, deeply disturbing" allegations raised in the documentary, State's Attorney Kim Foxx made an unusual public plea last month for any Kelly accusers to come forward.
High-profile attorney Michael Avenatti had teased the charges for days, telling reporters earlier this month that he gave Foxx a videotape he unearthed that depicted Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl. He said Friday the VHS tape dating to about 1999 was more than 40 minutes long and showed Kelly on two separate days engaged in sexual acts with the girl. He said the audio was clear and the video of "far superior" quality than the grainy tape used at the 2008 trial.
Both the victim and Kelly referred to the girls' age more than 10 separate times on the tape, according to Avenatti. She repeatedly called Kelly "Daddy" during the encounters, and at one point, Kelly urinated on her, he said.
"This was in no way role-playing during some sexual act," Avenatti said. "It is clear that this young lady was 14 years of age."
Avenatti said he uncovered the tape in January as part of an extensive investigation into Kelly's past that began when an alleged victim came forward to him in April 2018. Avenatti characterized the evidence gathered against the singer as overwhelming and expressed confidence that Kelly would face additional charges in other jurisdictions that threatened to bring him extensive prison time.
Kelly's victims were "among the most vulnerable in our society ... girls that came from very tough times and tough neighborhoods," Avenatti said.
The alleged abuse occurred years ago, but prosecutors were able to still bring charges against Kelly. Three of the indictments fall within the Illinois statute of limitations because charges were brought within 20 years of each of the alleged victims' 18th birthdays, according to court records.
Records show the fourth charge, involving the February 2003 incident, could have been prosecuted at any time, since Kelly's DNA was entered into a database within 10 years of the alleged incident and the victim reported the abuse within three years.
The indictments come at a time of intensifying professional trouble for Kelly, who has been targeted by a social media movement #MuteRKelly that called on streaming services and radio stations to drop Kelly's music and promoters not to book any more concerts. Protesters have demonstrated outside Kelly's Chicago studio, and a scheduled performance in Chicago last year was canceled amid the uproar.
Greenberg, Kelly's lawyer, said he believes the alleged victim in Avenatti's newly surfaced tape is the same girl from the 2008 child pornography trial and that charging the singer again for that amounts to double jeopardy.
The charges come about six weeks after Foxx called on any Kelly accusers to come forward, citing the allegations in the documentary series detailing accusations of sexual misconduct against the singer.
The six-hour documentary, "Surviving R. Kelly," aired on the Lifetime channel and alleged that he has manipulated young women into joining a "sex cult," forcing them to stay with him against their will and keeping them under his control.
In the days after Foxx's plea for help from alleged Kelly victims, her office was inundated with tips.
