R. Kelly charged with 10 counts of sex abuse

BY: Nmerichukwu Igweamaka

R&B star R. Kelly has been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sex abuse, at least some involving minors, a Cook County court official said Friday. 

The embattled singer — dogged for decades by sexual abuse allegations involving underage women — has a court date scheduled for March 8 in Chicago, where he resides, the official told AFP.

On Thursday, there was a fresh addition to a slew of lurid allegations against the R&B superstar when two more women accused him of sexually assaulting them as teens.

Latresa Scaff, 40, and Rochelle Washington, 39, told journalists in New York they met Kelly at a show’s after-party in Baltimore in the 1990s, giving them alcohol and drugs before cornering them in his hotel room and demanding sex.

They were unable to pinpoint the year of the concert but said it was either 1995 or 1996, adding Kelly’s security picked them out of the arena’s crowd.

At the after-party, they were given cocaine, marijuana and alcohol and invited to Kelly’s hotel room, according to Scaff, who said a man with a walkie-talkie told them: “R. Kelly is getting ready to enter the room. Pull up your dresses.”

The artist, now 52, then came in wearing a shirt and jeans but with his genitals exposed.

Washington refused his advances and hid in the bathroom, but Scaff gave him oral sex and then had intercourse with him, “even though I did not have the capacity to consent,” she said.

 Without providing further detail, Allred said some women she is representing fear video or audio recordings of their relations with Kelly may be circulating.

For decades the artist — real name Robert Sylvester Kelly — has faced lawsuits and accusations over child pornography, sex with minors, operating a sex cult and sexual battery.

“You have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide,” Allred said, referring to Kelly. “You have been able to get away with your predatory misconduct for far too long. (AFP)