CHICAGO (Court TV) — Days after filing an emergency request to be released to home detention, R. Kelly was allegedly rushed to the hospital in what the R&B singer says was an attack on his life.
FILE – Musician R. Kelly leaves the Leighton Criminal Court building in Chicago on June 6, 2019. (AP Photo/Amr Alfiky, File)
Robert Sylvester Kelly was sentenced to decades behind bars in New York and Chicago after he was convicted of sex trafficking and abuse of minors. Last week, Kelly’s attorney, Beau Brindley, filed an emergency motion for temporary furlough that detailed an alleged plot on the part of prison officials to murder Kelly.
Brindley filed an addendum to his motion this week, in which he said, “Within hours of the filing of our motion … retaliation began. The motion says that Kelly was moved into solitary confinement, where spiders crawled over him while he slept, and he was unable to talk to his attorneys.
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According to the filing, Kelly was moved into solitary confinement on June 10 and brought his medications with him. Later that night, prison personnel came to his cell and gave him additional medication, which he took. On June 13, Kelly said he woke up feeling faint and dizzy and “started to see black spots in his vision.” He passed out after crawling to the door of his cell and was taken via ambulance to Duke University Hospital.
Kelly was hospitalized for two days after what his attorney said was an overdose of medications that threatened his life. While at the hospital, Kelly said doctors determined he had blood clots in both legs and his lungs and scheduled surgery. “Within an hour, officers with guns came into his hospital room and removed Mr. Kelly,” Brindley said in the filing. “He was taken from the hospital against his will and against the directives of doctors.”
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Kelly was returned to FCI Butner, a prison in North Carolina, where he is serving his sentence. Kelly said he was returned to solitary confinement, rather than the prison’s medical facility, and was refused an extra blanket. Brindley wrote, “Mr. Kelly was on the phone with the undersigned today in tears, afraid that they will kill him or let him die.”
Prosecutors responded to the filing, urging the judge to dismiss and strike the motion, saying that the Chicago court has no jurisdiction over a prison 800 miles away. “This is the behavior of an abuser and master manipulator on display.” A footnote included in the motion directs to a clip of Kelly in an “unhinged” interview with Gayle King.
“This court should not allow Kelly to turn its docket into a grocery store checkout aisle tabloid,” prosecutors wrote.
The judge has not issued any ruling, and no hearings have been scheduled.
