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As the Sean “Diddy” Combs sex trafficking trial enters its final weeks, we turn our attention to the hip hop world’s other imprisoned icon/alleged sex pest.
Back in 2021, R. Kelly was convicted on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
He was sentenced to 30 years behind bars, which he’s now serving concurrently with a 20-year sentence for a child pornography conviction.
Now, in a bizarre twist, lawyers for Kelly are demanding his immediate release for safety reasons.
Kelly’s attorneys claim he’s been targeted by an assassination plot, and he’ll be murdered if he remains in prison.
Not surprisingly, federal prosecutors have rejected Kelly’s request for home detention as “fanciful” and “deeply unserious.”
They added that the filing “makes a mockery of the harm suffered” by victims of the “prolific child molester,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Prosecutors argued that even if Kelly’s lawyers could prove that he’s in immediate danger, that still wouldn’t empower the courts to release him from prison.
“Unfortunately, no court has the ability to enter an order freeing Kelly’s victims from the prison that Kelly put them in,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Julien wrote Monday.
Kelly’s lawyers say he’s been hospitalized after overdosing in his cell
Kelly attorney Beau Brindley alleged that Kelly was taken to Duke University Hospital early Friday morning after feeling faint and dizzy in his cell.
According to Brindley, hospital staff found blood clots in Kelly’s legs and lungs and told him that he’d suffered an overdose.
Brindley maintains that the only drugs Kelly consumed were the ones given to him by hospital staff.
According to TMZ, during the ride to the hospital, Kelly heard a corrections officer complain, “This is going to open a whole new can of worms.”
The disgraced R&B icon says doctors informed him that the amount of prescription medication he’d been given could have ended his life.
This latest filing comes just one week after Kelly’s lawyers demanded his immediate release, claiming that they’d uncovered an elaborate murder-for-hire plot targeting the singer.
That filing contained a sworn statement from Aryan Brotherhood gang leader Mikeal Glenn Stine, who claimed authorities offered to release him from prison if he murdered Kelly.
It sounds like the courts weren’t buying Kelly’s initial claims — and he’s having a hard time convincing them the second time around, too.
And it’s probably all wasted effort, as it might turn out that no judge has the authority to order Kelly’s release.
We’ll have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
