R. Kelly, 55, a discredited musician who was convicted earlier this week to 30 years in jail on counts of racketeering and sex trafficking, has been placed on suicide watch at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he is being housed.
According to a statement to ET from his attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, “Mr. Kelly was placed on suicide watch for purely punitive reasons in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.”
“MDC has a policy of putting high-profile people on suicide watch, regardless of whether they are suicidal or not” (this was done recently with Ghislaine Maxwell). MDC Brooklyn is managed in a gulag-like manner.
When Mr. Kelly and I spoke with him after his sentencing, he claimed to be mentally sound and only voiced worry that MDC may put him on suicide watch despite the fact that he wasn’t suicidal (as they did following the guilty verdict). We are currently arguing our case in court regarding his placement in prison.
ET has reached out to prosecutors and prison officials for comment.
On June 29, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in jail, five years of supervised release and a $100,000 fine, nine months after he was found guilty on one count of racketeering and eight violations of the Mann Act by a federal jury.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to send Kelly to prison “in excess of 25 years,” while Bonjean asked for the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.
“This is the sentence I was expecting for R. Kelly and I think a lot of people were expecting,” legal expert Jesse Weber told ET after Kelly’s sentencing. “When you get convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering, you expect a large prison sentence and this is exactly what we saw here.”
“A stiff prison sentence sends the message to the world that no one is above the law, one, that the seriousness of these offenses cannot be taken lightly, and two, and this is probably the most important one, the words of these victims and the words of these survivors really played a factor in this sentencing decision,” he continued.
“I believe that R. Kelly will serve the remainder of his time on Earth in prison. This is essentially a life sentence for him.”
Since 2019, Kelly has been detained in a jail without a bond. Kelly is facing a number of allegations outside of New York, including aggravated sexual assault, child pornography, enticement of a minor, obstruction of justice, prostitution, and solicitation of a minor in Illinois and Minnesota.
Chicago, he’s going to spend the rest of his time on Earth behind bars.”
Source:etonline.com