Disgraced R&B star R. Kelly suffered an overdose of medications that were given to him by prison staff in North Carolina, his lawyer alleges in a new filing.
Earlier this month, Kelly’s attorney said that the singer needed to be pardoned by President Donald Trump as he was the target over an elaborate assassination plot involving a leader in a white supremacist prison gang.
This latest filing comes as the federal prosecutors who put disgraced Kelly, 58, in prison for 30 years have slammed his attempts to gain a release as “deeply unserious” and “repugnant.”
The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling R&B songwriter was convicted in 2021 in Brooklyn federal court of multiple charges, including racketeering and sex trafficking. Widespread outrage over Kelly’s sexual misconduct did not emerge until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.”
According to his lawyer, Kelly was put in solitary confinement on June 10. He had with him his medications for anxiety. On the same day, his lawyer says, prison staff entered his room and directed him to take further medications. He complied. The filing. seen by The Independent, says that this interaction was “captured on camera.”
On June 13, Kelly reported that he “felt faint. He was dizzy. He started to see black spots in his vision.” The singer then lost consciousness and was rushed to Duke University Hospital.
Kelly is quoted in the document as saying during his transfer he heard a prison staffer say: “This is going to open a new can of worms.”
The filing goes on to say that Kelly spent two days being treated in the hospital. “They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him,” Kelly’s lawyer says.
Kelly has allegedly not being receiving necessary treatment for blood clots in recent months. During his recent stay, doctors at Duke observed his legs and found clots that require surgery.
His lawyer said that Kelly was quickly removed from the hospital after receiving a surgical consultation as the officers denied him surgery.
Prosecutors argue that the judge who received the motion for Kelly’s release lacks the authority to release the singer. The motion will be heard in a hearing on Friday.
His lawyers are also seeking an intervention from President Donald Trump.
“We are engaged in conversations with multiple persons close to the White House and to President Trump. My client does not have the luxury to wait for vindication from the Courts that will follow the exposure of the corruption at the heart of his prosecutions,” his lawyers said in a statement.
The original filing includes a sworn declaration from the terminally ill inmate, Mikeal Glenn Stine, claiming that three high-ranking BOP officials asked him to carry out the murder while he was in custody at the United States Penitentiary Tucson, Arizona.
Stine, a self-identified member of the Aryan Brotherhood, claims the officials offered him the opportunity to escape custody and live out his final months as a “free man” in exchange for Kelly’s murder.
The filing further adds that once Stine was transferred to Kelly’s unit in March, he was approached by one of the officials, who allegedly told him: “You need to do what you came here for.”
Stine claims that after watching Kelly for a few months, he had a change of heart before confessing to the singer his alleged murder plot.
Kelly’s attorneys allege that they were made aware in June of a second member of the Aryan Brotherhood whom officials directed to execute both Kelly and Stine.
