R. Kelly Accused Of Sex Trafficking In Brooklyn Indictment

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have accused the disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly of running a tightly controlled enterprise of sexual abuse and coercion dating back two decades and spanning four states.

In a detailed five-count indictment unsealed Friday, prosecutors say Kelly kept women and girls captive as his sexual partners, isolating them from their friends and family, hoarding sensitive information about them and forcing them to call him "Daddy."

With help from managers, bodyguards, assistants and others, Kelly helmed an enterprise to promote his music and "recruit women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity" going back to 1999, the indictment says. He allegedly had sex with minors, produced child porn and exposed one woman to a sexually transmitted disease, according to the charges.

Kelly's enterprise "preyed upon women and girls who attended his concerts so that the victims could be available to engage in illegal sexual activity with him at a moment’s notice. Today that comes to an end," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said in a statement.

The indictment charges Kelly with racketeering and violations of the Mann Act, a federal anti-sex trafficking law. The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office unveiled them the morning after the NYPD and federal agents arrested Kelly in Chicago, where he faces a separate 13-count indictment involving child pornography and obstruction of justice. Federal agents also searched Kelly's home Friday morning, the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Kelly did not enter a plea to either set of charges Friday, said John Marzulli, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn office. He will be arraigned on the Illinois indictment on Tuesday, when his removal to New York will also be addressed, Marzulli said.

The federal charges add to Kelly's legal woes — he is already facing state charges of aggravated sexual assault and abuse in Illinois, to which he has pleaded not guilty, news reports say.

A lawyer for Kelly, Steve Greenberg, said the new accusations largely overlap with the state charges againt the singer and stem from conduct that is "decades old," Greenberg said.

"Mr. Kelly was aware of the investigations and the charges were not a surprise," Greenberg said in a statement. "... He and his lawyers look forward to his day in court, to the truth coming out and to his vindication from what has been an unprecedented assault by others for their own personal gain."

Kelly hopes to be released from custody following a bail hearing scheduled for early next week, Greenberg said.

Kelly has faced accusations for years that he lured women and girls into a sort of cult, isolating them from their families and subjecting them to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Such allegations were at the center of "Surviving R. Kelly," a Lifetime documentary series that led RCA Records, Kelly's longtime record label, to drop him from its roster.

Prosecutors say Kelly leaned on his fame to draw women and girls into his criminal circle, which operated in New York, Connecticut, Illinois, California and elsewhere.

He had his associates arrange sexual encounters with the victims and maintained strict rules over their behavior, the indictment says. For example, prosecutors say, they had to wear baggy clothing whenever they were not with Kelly at an event and could not leave their rooms to eat or use the bathroom without his permission.

The indictment involves five victims identified as Jane Doe, three of whom were minors. Kelly faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted of all the charges, according to prosecutors.

"R. Kelly believed he could fly, but it will be justice to see his oppressive wings clipped," Angel Melenez, the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations special agent-in-charge in New York, said in a statement.

The new charges against Kelly come less than a week after authorities arrested Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire financier accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls in his Manhattan and Florida homes.

Both men have been newly charged more than a decade after their first entanglements with the law. Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008, the same year that Epstein pleaded guilty to two prostitution charges in a deal with prosecutors that has been criticized as too lenient.