R. Kelly currently faces legal matters that point to the singer marrying then teen Aaliyah to avoid criminal charges.
What We Know:
- According to a report from Essence, court documents revealed Kelly married 15-year-old Aaliyah to keep her from testifying against him and avoid criminal charges.
- The Chicago Sun-Times reported, federal prosecutors shared this new information to show that R. Kelly has a pattern of obstructing justice and to make a case to deny his lawyer’s requests to disclose the identities of two alleged victims in his Brooklyn case.
- Secondly, Essence added that Kelly’s lawyer, Steven Greenberg, argued that “the defense cannot conduct any investigation or adequately prepare for trial without knowing each of the supposed victims.
- According to the New York Times, federal prosecutors included a charge to Kelly’s case in Brooklyn. The charge detailed Kelly bribing an Illinois government employee in order to obtain fake identification to marry Aaliyah when she was just 15-years-old.
- Furthermore, Greenberg said in an interview with Good Morning America that Kelly did not know Aaliyah was 15 at the time. Revealing Aaliyah didn’t tell the truth, the then teen singer did not accurately record her age on the marital document.
- Kelly’s marriage to Aaliyah in 1994 was annulled the following year after her family became aware of the situation.
Kelly is in Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. He faces charges in Chicago for child pornography and obstruction of justice, in addition to Brooklyn for racketeering.
