The American singer R. Kelly is now also accused of abusing an underage boy. According to the prosecutor, the artist had sex with a 17-year-old boy, whom he met in 2006.
54-year-old R. Kelly, who is actually called Robert Kelly, has been accused of abusing several women and girls for some time. The trial against him will start in August, including for sexual exploitation and the production of child pornography.
‘Wider pattern’
The federal prosecutor has now added more than ten new charges to the file, including that of the 17-year-old boy. The official charges against Kelly will not be expanded. But the prosecution wants to discuss them in the trial so that the jury can see that they are “not isolated events and part of a wider pattern”.
According to the prosecutor, Kelly ran into the 17-year-old boy at a McDonald’s in December 2006. The boy had ambitions as a musician and the singer would have invited him to his studio. There Kelly asked the boy what he would give to make it in the music industry, the prosecutor writes, after which the two had sex on his initiative.
Filming sex
Through the 17-year-old Kelly also came into contact with another boy, then 16 or 17 years old. The singer started a sexual relationship with him a few years later, the prosecutor writes. The artist is also said to have filmed the two boys having sex with others, including some of the artist’s friends.
R. Kelly, who scored hits in the 90s including I Believe I can Fly, has been incarcerated for two years on sexual abuse allegations. He himself says that he did nothing wrong.