CHICAGO _ Indicted singer R. Kelly on Thursday renewed a motion for release from federal jail in Chicago while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges, citing new information that as many as six inmates and seven staff members at the Metropolitan Correctional Center have tested positive for COVID-19.
The motion, filed before the federal judge overseeing Kelly's racketeering case in New York, alleges there are likely far more cases of coronavirus that are being reported since the jail has only tested detainees who have exhibited symptoms even though the virus has a lengthy incubation period and many people who contract it remain asymptomatic.
The motion alleged the news that the virus has hit the jail has increased the stress level throughout the inmate population, including Kelly, who has been held there without bond since his arrest last July.
"Inmates are reportedly banging on doors, walls and windows begging for help," Kelly's attorney, Michael Leonard, stated in the motion. "The only thing the MCC has done is lock things down, making the situation feel more like solitary confinement and possibly, because of the nature of this virus, locking in healthy inmates with those who may already have the virus but who may not yet be symptomatic."
A status hearing in the case was scheduled to be held by telephone Thursday afternoon in front of U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn.
Donnelly already denied a previous bid by Kelly to be released due to the spreading pandemic. In refusing to grant bond, the judge noted that Kelly was deemed a flight risk and had the potential to tamper with witnesses. She also said that at the time, the MCC had seen no cases of the virus among its population.
On Wednesday, however, federal prosecutors in Chicago revealed at least two inmates and seven staff members had tested positive for the disease. A motion filed in a different case also stated "the government has received preliminary information that other inmates at the MCC may have tested positive for COVID-19, but is awaiting further confirmation" from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
The BOP has so far confirmed only one positive inmate on its website. Those numbers are expected to be updated Thursday afternoon.
Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was charged in U.S. District Court in Chicago with conspiring with two former employees _ longtime manager Derrell McDavid and former employee Milton "June" Brown _ to rig his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County by paying off witnesses and victims to change their stories.
The indictment also alleged Kelly and his co-defendants paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to recover child sex tapes before they fell into the hands of prosecutors.
He also faces a separate racketeering conspiracy indictment in U.S. District Court in New York alleging he identified underage girls attending his concerts and groomed them for later sexual abuse. A jury trial in that case is currently set for mid-July.
The singer is charged in four separate indictments in Cook County alleging he sexually assaulted or abused four women, three of whom were underage at the time.
Additional charges are also pending in Minnesota, alleging Kelly solicited a teenager who asked for his autograph in 2001.
Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
