US singer R. Kelly to spend second night in jail after failing to post bond

(L) R. Kelly at the police station. (R) R. Kelly’s mugshot. COURTESY PHOTO

Singer R Kelly will spend another night in jail after being unable to make bail, as prosecutors allege he solicited underage girls for sex even as he was on trial for child pornography.

The Daily Mail reports that while on trial in 2008, R Kelly still found time to talk to fans, give autographs and to meet an underage girl he later invited to his home, according to prosecutors who depicted the R&B star as manipulative and sometimes violent.

Other accusers included a girl who met Kelly at her 16th birthday party and a hairdresser who expected to braid the singer’s hair only to find that he wanted oral sex instead, court documents said.

The accounts emerged Saturday as Kelly made his first court appearance since being accused of sexually abusing four people in a case that could produce another #MeToo reckoning for a celebrity.

R Kelly was granted $1million bond in court on Saturday after having been indicted and booked on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sex abuse.

At a bond hearing, prosecutors said they had DNA evidence taken from one victim that matched Kelly’s. Semen taken from the shirt of a second victim, who was under age 17, was a preliminary match, they added.

In setting bail, Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. ordered Kelly to not have contact with anyone under 18 years old, and to not have contact with any of the alleged victims or witnesses.
The singer was required to relinquish his passport.