Jailed singer R. Kelly contracts COVID-19, needs more time for appeal

R&B singer R. Kelly has contracted COVID-19 while awaiting sentencing in a Brooklyn federal jail for his racketeering conviction, his lawyer revealed in a court filing early Tuesday.

The singer's diagnosis has hampered his ability to speak on the phone about his appeal of his conviction, which is due Thursday, said Kelly's lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, in asking for a two-week extension.

"It is vitally important that Mr. Kelly meaningfully participate in his post-trial defense," Bonjean wrote in the motion, saying she hoped to communicate with him in an upcoming Zoom call.

Bonjean, a New York-based attorney whose legal career began in Chicago, also noted that Kelly had decided to part ways with his original trial team, but that formal withdrawals were still pending.

Bonjean said prosecutors did not object to the delay. U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly has not yet ruled.

Kelly, 54, was convicted Sept. 27 on racketeering conspiracy charges, alleging he used his music career to further a criminal enterprise. The jury found him guilty of 12 individual illegal acts, including sex with multiple underage girls as well as a 1994 scheme to bribe an Illinois public aid official to get a phony ID for 15-year-old singer Aaliyah so the two could get married.

He faces 10 years to life in prison when he's sentenced in May.

The singer also is charged in U.S. District Court in Chicago with running a yearslong scheme to buy back sex tapes he allegedly made with underage girls and to bribe or coerce witnesses in his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County, which ended in acquittal. U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber has set trial for August in that case.

Like many federal detention facilities, the Brooklyn jail where Kelly has been held since last summer has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases amid the omicron surge.

As of Monday, 39 detainees at the facility were positive for the virus, with more than 600 listed as recovered, according to U.S. Bureau of Prisons statistics. One inmate death there had been attributed to COVID-19.

Kelly's previous legal team had mounted several unsuccessful attempts to have him released on bond due to the threat of coronavirus both at the Brooklyn facility as well as at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago where he'd previously been held.

Bonjean was the driving force behind comedian Bill Cosby's appeal of his sex crimes conviction in Pennsylvania and wound up winning the actor's stunning release from prison.

She told the Tribune last year she's "looking forward to getting familiar with the record" in Kelly's case, which was anchored by Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges that she called a "kitchen sink approach."

"I am becoming increasingly concerned with how the government is abusing the RICO statute in order to plead around the statute of limitations and essentially put people's entire lives on trial," Bonjean said. "It's becoming a formula for the government. You have a right to defend yourself against specific allegations."