Judge Rejects R. Kelly's Request for Prison Release

A federal judge in Chicago has denied a request by R. Kelly to be released from prison on home confinement.

Judge Martha Pacold handed down the ruling on Thursday, June 19, according to reporting by USA Today. The judge said she did not have the jurisdiction to make a decision in the case.

Kelly’s attorney Beau B. Brindley filed the motion in Illinois, where the “Ignition” singer was convicted, but he is now serving his sentence in North Carolina.

“We are not surprised by this ruling as we knew that technical jurisdiction would be a challenge under these circumstances,” Brindley told the outlet. “However, we had no choice but to act immediately given explicit evidence of a threat to Robert Kelly’s life.”

Brindley said he plans to file a new motion to get the singer’s convictions in Illinois dismissed, based on “newly discovered evidence.”

The Grammy winner’s legal team previously asked President Donald Trump for a pardon because they claim there is a “plot to kill him” as he tries to expose alleged “corruption” in his federal prosecutions.

Prosecutors have dismissed the allegations, saying: “This is the behavior of an abuser and a master manipulator on display.”

Kelly was transferred to a prison in North Carolina in April 2023.

On June 10, prison staff at the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, North Carolina, placed Kelly in solitary confinement for his safety after he claimed his life was in danger, as previously reported.

While in solitary confinement, Kelly’s legal team alleged in a court filing that the singer was given too much medication for his health problems.

“They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him,” the attorneys said in their court filing.

Kelly, 58, was rushed to Duke University Hospital on June 13.

During a two-day hospital stay, the court filing said doctors found blood clots in the singer’s legs and lungs and told him he needed surgery. But prison officials allegedly denied the surgery, the filing said.

Instead, Kelly was transferred back to prison, which his attorney said left him in deteriorating health.

A federal judge in Chicago sentenced the singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, to 20 years in prison in February 2023, for child pornography and enticement of minors.

That was after a federal judge in Brooklyn gave him a 30-year sentence in June 2022, for racketeering and sex trafficking. He is serving the two sentences concurrently.

The singer’s accusers detailed decades of abuse in the Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly.

On Thursday, Billboard named Kelly the No. 9 best R&B artist of all time, saying he “played an integral role in bridging the worlds of R&B, soul, pop and rap while also penning hits for Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Aaliyah and Whitney Houston.”