CHICAGO _ After widespread public criticism of Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx and federal charges against celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti, R. Kelly's lawyer wants to view any communications the two may have shared about his superstar client.
"There are serious questions whether Kim Foxx was bullied or just simply manipulated by Avenatti and others," attorney Steven Greenberg, defending R. Kelly against aggravated criminal sexual abuse charges, wrote in a motion filed Monday. "The communications are key to uncovering the answers."
The filing is one of the first _ but likely far from the last _ to try to capitalize on the firestorm facing Foxx after her office abruptly dropped all charges last week against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett with little explanation.
Kelly was not scheduled to return to court until May, but Greenberg sought the hearing Monday to preserve any communications about Kelly between Avenatti and other attorneys, witnesses, law enforcement personnel or employees of the Cook County state's attorney's office.
Kelly was not slated to appear in Judge Lawrence Flood's courtroom for the morning hearing.
Kelly was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in February, about a month after Foxx called for his accusers to come forward in the wake of a Lifetime documentary series she called "deeply disturbing." Separate indictments allege that Kelly sexually abused three underage girls and a fourth woman over a period of about a dozen years.
Avenatti, best known for representing adult film star Stormy Daniels, claimed to represent several people connected to Kelly's alleged misconduct.
In February, Avenatti said he turned over a VHS tape to Cook County prosecutors showing Kelly sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl _ a tape that later became the center of one of the new indictments against the singer.
"Avenatti has acted as a de facto prosecutor, it appears with the full cooperation of the State's Attorney," the motion said.
Avenatti last week was hit with separate federal charges in New York accusing him of trying to extort Nike and in California on fraud-related charges.
Meanwhile, Foxx has come under fire for her office's handling of the Smollett case. The actor was accused of staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself, but prosecutors dropped all charges against him Tuesday in a shocking last-minute court hearing.
Foxx withdrew herself from the investigation in its early stages after communicating with a relative of Smollett's _ a move she told the Tribune last week she regrets.
"Plainly, this particular State's Attorney is able to be influenced and wowed, as evidenced by the facts of her recusal and the subsequent series of events in the Jussie Smollett case," Greenberg's motion said.
The filing even goes on to allege that Foxx's history of having been sexual abused may have clouded her judgment in bringing charges against Kelly. Foxx publicly discussed her personal experiences with sexual violence on the campaign trail and after her election in 2016.
"Often Ms. Foxx is heard commenting on her own 'abuse' as a child, which, as horrible as same may be, creates the appearance of bias and an understandable willingness, desire and propensity to rush to judgment in prosecuting," the filing said.
The case against Kelly simply rehashes old allegations, the defense filing alleged, at least one of which was investigated at the time without resulting in charges against the singer.
R. Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges by a Cook County jury more than a decade ago.
