R. Kelly pleads not guilty for 7th time in a little more than a year

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CHICAGO — R. Kelly pleaded not guilty Thursday to a superseding indictment brought in New York, marking the seventh time the embattled singer has been arraigned on sexual abuse-related charges in a little more than a year.

The new indictment adds several allegations of abuse involving a victim referred to only as Jane Doe 5. Two of the new counts carry mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years in prison if convicted, according to prosecutors.

Kelly, who is being held without bond at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, was not brought to New York for the brief hearing due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Participating by telephone from jail, Kelly said, “Yes ma’am,” when the judge asked him if he was waiving his right to appear in court in person. His attorney, Michael Leonard, then entered the not guilty plea on Kelly’s behalf.

Kelly, 53, who has been held without bond since his arrest on the federal charges last July, is charged with racketeering conspiracy in U.S. District Court in New York alleging he identified underage girls attending his concerts and groomed them for later sexual abuse.

Kelly is also charged in a federal indictment in Chicago with conspiring with two former employees — longtime manager Derrel McDavid and former employee Milton “June” Brown — to rig his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County by paying off witnesses and victims to change their stories.

That indictment also alleged Kelly and his co-defendants paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to recover child sex tapes before they fell into the hands of prosecutors.

The singer is charged in four separate indictments in Cook County alleging he sexually assaulted or abused four women, three of whom were underage at the time.

Additional charges are pending in Minnesota, alleging Kelly solicited a teenager who asked for his autograph in 2001.

Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

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