HUMAN SMUGGLING/TRAFFICKING
'R. Kelly' charged with racketeering, including predicate acts of coercing and transporting minor girls to engage in sex
NEW YORK — Robert Sylvester Kelly, AKA “R. Kelly,” was arrested in Chicago Thursday night following an investigation by the joint Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York and New York City Police Department (NYPD) Public Safety Task Force and special agents with HSI Chicago. A five-count superseding indictment was unsealed Friday in federal court in Brooklyn charging R&B singer “R. Kelly” with racketeering predicated on criminal conduct including sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping, forced labor and Mann Act violations involving the coercion and transportation of women and girls in interstate commerce to engage in illegal sexual activity. Kelly is also charged with four counts of violating the Mann Act related to his interstate transportation of a victim to New York to engage in illegal sexual activity, and his exposure of her to an infectious venereal disease without her knowledge. Kelly was also charged in a separate federal indictment unsealed in the Northern District of Illinois with federal child pornography and obstruction charges.
Kelly is scheduled to appear at the federal courthouse in Chicago, Illinois. On a later date, Kelly will be arraigned on this superseding indictment in Brooklyn.
More
*************
CHILD EXPLOITATION
Chicago recording artist 'R. Kelly' indicted and arrested on federal child pornography, obstruction charges
CHICAGO — Recording artist Robert Sylvester Kelly, also known as “R. Kelly,” was arrested Thursday following his indictment on federal child pornography and obstruction charges.
This indictment was announced by the following agency heads: U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr., Northern District of Illinois; Special Agent in Charge James M. Gibbons, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); and Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Tara Sullivan, Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division. Cook County (Illinois) State’s Attorney’s Office and Chicago Police Department provided substantial assistance.
Kelly, 52, of Chicago, was arrested the night of July 11.
More