The Solitary Where R. Kelly is Servi
The Solitary where R. Kelly is Serving. A facility that would & can be one of Africa’s State house or Parliament
It’s been more than two years since disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly went from living a life of superstar luxury to spending more than 20 hours a day in a cramped prison cell awaiting trial and eating packs of Ramen noodles heated up on a tray.
That’s been the once high-flying star’s reality since he was arrested in July 2019 in Chicago by NYPD detectives and Homeland Security officers and indicted by a federal grand jury on federal charges that alleged aggravated criminal sexual abuse; Kelly has denied multiple allegations that he sexually abused a number of women, three of whom were allegedly minors at the time.
And that’s still the case now, as Kelly remains detained during his New York trial on federal charges of racketeering and the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children that could result in a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
Kelly has spent time at two federal lock-ups — the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago and now at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in the midst of his ongoing sex-trafficking trial in New York.
And because more than half of his detention has taken place in the midst of the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic — which has taken an especially hard toll on prisoners — experts tell that Kelly’s time in lockup has likely been even more challenging.
Start with the proposition that MCC [in Chicago] is a very tough place to spend time because it’s a small facility to begin with — and it doesn’t offer a lot in the nature of programming, and that he was detained at one of the worst times in history because of COVID,” attorney Michael Leonard tells.
Leonard withdrew from representing Kelly, 54, in the New York case, but is still slated to be on the singer’s defense team for the upcoming Chicago trial, where he faces 13 federal charges, including aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Kelly has spent the majority of his time in the Chicago lock-up, where Leonard says he is only allowed out of his 8×10, two-person cell for a few hours day to check his email, talk to his lawyers, make phone calls, shower and eat, with no access to the rooftop basketball court that is typically available during non-COVID times.
Otherwise, he says, Kelly is restricted to his cell and, like his fellow inmates, subject to the fear of infection from COVID in the kind of conditions that experts have called an “epidemic engine.”