A former employee of troubled singer-songwriter R. Kelly told a grand jury that the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer frequently recorded his sexual encounters with underage girls and kept them as souvenirs, and now they’re allegedly in possession of the feds.
According to TMZ, the former employee testified in front of a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Illinois on Thursday (May 30), and claimed to have had multiple tapes in their possession in which Kelly engages in sexual acts with minors.
The former employee also told grand jurors that R. Kelly paid a large amount of money to have the employee hold onto the tapes and in return give them back to the artist. However, the tape in question ended up in the possession of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
The former employee also handed over to the feds more sex tapes that feature the “Ignition” singer. The former employee also stated that R. Kelly’s associates were well aware that he had a penchant for statutory raping underage girls, and instead of “blowing the whistle” on the singer, they helped him get young girls instead.
“This seems to be the same claims that were made in the state case. We will address them in court,” R. Kelly’s lawyer, Steve Greenberg told TMZ. R. Kelly also has two other federal probes in New York’s Eastern and Southern Districts, in addition to the multiple counts of sex abuse and sexual assault in Cook County.
Glennisha Morgan is a Detroit-bred multimedia journalist and writer. She writes about intersectionality, hip-hop, pop culture, queer issues, race, feminism, and her truth. Follow her on Twitter.