R. Kelly’s claim that he’s the target of a prison murder plot is “fanciful,” “deeply unserious” and “makes a mockery of the harm suffered” by victims of the former R&B superstar who turned out to be a “prolific child molester,” federal prosecutors argued Monday.
They also said Kelly’s bid for temporary release to home detention is “repugnant.” But several hours later, Kelly’s attorneys fired back with new claims that he’d been given a life-threatening overdose of his medication by prison officials and then later removed by them from a hospital against his doctors’ advice.
The lawyers’ back-and-forth comes days before a judge is expected to rule on whether she even has jurisdiction over the controversy.
“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.
Julien made his comments in a 19-page brief that amounted to the most substantive response so far to Kelly’s extraordinary allegations. The imprisoned singer is also appealing to President Donald Trump for help.
Not due for freedom until December 2045, Kelly claims that prison officials enlisted a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood to assassinate him to prevent the release of damaging information apparently obtained by the singer’s attorneys.
Kelly asked U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold in Chicago to release him temporarily to home detention. The judge has scheduled a hearing for Friday. But rather than focusing on the merits of Kelly’s claims, the judge seems focused on whether she is even the appropriate authority to handle the matter.
Julien insisted in his filing Monday that she does not have jurisdiction.
“Imagine a scenario where any and every incarcerated criminal could go back to the criminal court(s) that imposed a sentence of imprisonment upon them, allege that they fear imminent harm and demand to be released from custody while the matter was investigated,” Julien wrote. “Every convicted murderer, rapist, and terrorist will have a newfound shot at freedom.”
The prosecutor also said in his filing that Kelly “is a serial child molester whose criminal abuse of children dates back to at least President Bill Clinton’s first term in office — decades before Kelly was taken into federal custody.”
“Kelly has never taken responsibility for his years of sexually abusing children, and he probably never will,” Julien wrote.
The singer’s lawyers said last week that Kelly had been moved into solitary confinement after their initial filing, and they wrote that he’d stopped eating the food offered to him out of fear that it had been poisoned. Late Monday, attorney Beau Brindley also alleged that Kelly was taken to Duke University Hospital early Friday morning after feeling faint and dizzy and seeing black spots.
That was after Kelly took medication as directed by prison officials, the lawyer wrote.
At the hospital, Kelly was told he’d been given an overdose, Brindley said. Hospital staff also found blood clots in Kelly’s legs and lungs, and they planned to hold the singer for surgery, according to the lawyer. But Brindley said prison officials intervened, removed Kelly and took him back to solitary confinement.
Earlier Monday, Julien argued that Kelly’s placement in solitary confinement shows officials “are receptive to Kelly’s concerns and interested in keeping Kelly safe.”
Kelly, 58, is being held in a medium-security prison in Butner, North Carolina, records show. He’s serving a 30-year sentence there for his 2021 racketeering and sex-crime conviction in New York.
The singer is also serving a mostly simultaneous 20-year sentence for his 2022 child pornography conviction in Chicago.
