Latest news with #AryanBrotherhood
CBS News
21 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Judge denies R. Kelly's request to be placed on home detention, amid claims of prison murder plot
A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday denied singer R. Kelly's bid to be released to home detention, ruling that she does not have the jurisdiction to rule on his attorneys' claims that federal authorities are plotting to kill him in prison. Earlier this month, Kelly's attorneys filed an emergency motion seeking his immediate release to home detention, claiming his life is in danger as he serves a 30-year prison sentence for various sex crimes. The motion claims Kelly's former cellmate at the federal lockup in Chicago conspired with prison officials to steal mail between him and his attorneys, and turn it over to prosecutors before his trial on child pornography charges, in order to pit Kelly's former girlfriend against him. Kelly's attorneys also claimed prison officials recruited a fellow prison inmate, who is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, to kill Kelly in prison in North Carolina to prevent him from exposing the plot to steal his mail and turn witnesses against him. In addition to their motion asking a judge to place him on home confinement, Kelly's attorneys also made a public plea to President Trump to set him free. The federal judge now overseeing Kelly's criminal case in Chicago originally set a hearing for Friday, but on Thursday denied his motion, finding she does not have jurisdiciton to rule on his claims that the feds are plotting to kill him. U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold noted that, since he has already been convicted and sentenced, she has limited jurisdiciton over his case, essentially only if he is challenging his conviction or sentence. "Kelly is currently housed at FCI Butner, which is located in Butner, North Carolina—outside this judicial district," Pacold wrote. "Kelly has not demonstrated a legal basis for this court's jurisdiction. Accordingly, his emergency motion … is denied." In their formal response to Kelly's motion in court, federal prosecutors have called Kelly's claims of a plot to kill him "repugnant to the sentence that this court imposed for deply disturbing offenses." "Kelly refuses to accept responsibility for years of sexually abusing children and is using this Court's docket merely to promote himself despite there being no legal basis to be before this Court," prosecutors wrote earlier this week. Kelly's attorneys also have claimed that, since making his original emergency motion for release, he was given a life-threatening overdose of his medication by prison officials, and later removed from a hospital against his doctors' advice. Kelly, 58, was convicted in 2022 in Chicago of child pornography charges, accused of making videos of himself sexually abusing three teenage girls, including his 14-year-old goddaughter. Meantime, a federal jury in New York convicted Kelly of racketeering and sex trafficking charges in 2021, finding him guilty of running a criminal enterprise to sexually exploit young women and children. Federal appeals courts have upheld both convictions. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the New York case, and most of his 20-year sentence in the Chicago case is running concurrently to that prison term. The singer is serving his prison sentence at a medium-security federal correctional center in Butner, North Carolina, and is expected to be released on Dec. 21, 2045, when he would be nearly 79 years old.
CBS News
a day ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Judge denies R. Kelly's request to be placed on home detention, citing lack of jurisdiction
A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday denied singer R. Kelly's bid to be released to home detention, ruling that she does not have the jurisdiction to rule on his attorneys' claims that federal authorities are plotting to kill him in prison. Earlier this month, Kelly's attorneys filed an emergency motion seeking his immediate release to home detention, claiming his life is in danger as he serves a 30-year prison sentence for various sex crimes. The motion claims Kelly's former cellmate at the federal lockup in Chicago conspired with prison officials to steal mail between him and his attorneys, and turn it over to prosecutors before his trial on child pornography charges, in order to pit Kelly's former girlfriend against him. Kelly's attorneys also claimed prison officials recruited a fellow prison inmate, who is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, to kill Kelly in prison in North Carolina to prevent him from exposing the plot to steal his mail and turn witnesses against him. In addition to their motion asking a judge to place him on home confinement, Kelly's attorneys also made a public plea to President Trump to set him free. The federal judge now overseeing Kelly's criminal case in Chicago originally set a hearing for Friday, but on Thursday denied his motion, finding she does not have jurisdiciton to rule on his claims that the feds are plotting to kill him. U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold noted that, since he has already been convicted and sentenced, she has limited jurisdiciton over his case, essentially only if he is challenging his conviction or sentence. "Kelly is currently housed at FCI Butner, which is located in Butner, North Carolina—outside this judicial district," Pacold wrote. "Kelly has not demonstrated a legal basis for this court's jurisdiction. Accordingly, his emergency motion … is denied." In their formal response to Kelly's motion in court, federal prosecutors have called Kelly's claims of a plot to kill him "repugnant to the sentence that this court imposed for deply disturbing offenses." "Kelly refuses to accept responsibility for years of sexually abusing children and is using this Court's docket merely to promote himself despite there being no legal basis to be before this Court," prosecutors wrote earlier this week. Kelly's attorneys also have claimed that, since making his original emergency motion for release, he was given a life-threatening overdose of his medication by prison officials, and later removed from a hospital against his doctors' advice. Kelly, 58, was convicted in 2022 in Chicago of child pornography charges, accused of making videos of himself sexually abusing three teenage girls, including his 14-year-old goddaughter. Meantime, a federal jury in New York convicted Kelly of racketeering and sex trafficking charges in 2021, finding him guilty of running a criminal enterprise to sexually exploit young women and children. Federal appeals courts have upheld both convictions. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the New York case, and most of his 20-year sentence in the Chicago case is running concurrently to that prison term. The singer is serving his prison sentence at a medium-security federal correctional center in Butner, North Carolina, and is expected to be released on Dec. 21, 2045, when he would be nearly 79 years old.
The South African
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The South African
R. Kelly suffers overdose, alleges Aryan Brotherhood is responsible
Chicago's R. Kelly was rushed to Duke University Hospital after overdosing in prison. This has raised questions about the singer's safety behind bars while Kelly and his legal team claim the Aryan Brotherhood was behind the attempt on his life. His legal team said that Kelly collapsed in his cell at Butner Medium Correctional Institution on 12 June. This happened after the singer and songwriter was allegedly instructed by prison staff to consume additional medication. Kelly spent two days in the hospital, where he learnt that he had ingested a life-threatening amount of this additional medication. A few days ago, R. Kelly made headlines when he claimed he had received death threats from the Aryan Brotherhood while he was in prison. This came on the back of another celebrity convict, Tory Lanez, being stabbed 14 times in the prison where he was being held. Lanez survived and has since been moved to a different facility. Kelly's attorneys claim his poisoning is part of this larger plot to kill him. They claim this incident to be a murder for hire involving the Aryan Brotherhood. Mikeal Glenn Stine is a terminally ill inmate who alerted Kelly to this scheme to see him erased. Stine said prison officials offered him freedom in exchange for conducting this assassination. Another inmate was approached to ensure the job would be carried out when Stine declined the offer. Kelly's legal team has filed an emergency motion which would see him released and confined to his home. The argument cites his life being in jeopardy because of his incarceration, and his team has also cited misconduct by prison officials involving the lack of necessary medical treatment and leaking confidential legal documentation. Federal prosecutors responded by rubbishing Kelly's claims and calling these attempts at adjusting the terms of his incarceration 'the behaviour of an abuser and a master manipulator.' Prosecutors are of the impression that he simply wants to duck out on his 30-year sentence for sex trafficking and racketeering. The court has yet to deliver a ruling on this matter. These allegations have raised concerns around inmate safety and corruption in jails in America, especially as it pertains to high-profile convicts. It is not clear if Kelly will be released, but this has renewed his legal woes. Let us know by leaving a comment below or sending a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 11. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
R. Kelly is hospitalized and lawyer blames alleged murder plot. Feds call the allegations ‘fanciful'
R. Kelly collapsed in prison Friday and had to be hospitalized outside prison walls, then didn't get care that hospital staff said he needed, his attorney alleged in a Monday court filing. The disgraced R&B singer's attorney said federal prison officials attempted to kill Kelly via a drug overdose Friday, two days after a previous motion was filed stating that the 'I Believe I Can Fly' singer was in danger from an interstate plot involving prison authorities and the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Authorities are allegedly trying to prevent Kelly from spilling compromising information about misconduct by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons, per court documents filed on Kelly's behalf and reviewed by The Times. The federal government dismissed the intentional overdose allegations, filing a response Tuesday that characterized the idea of a prison murder plot as 'fantastic' and 'fanciful.' Kelly, 58, is serving 30-year and 20-year federal sentences that are largely concurrent at the FCI Butner prison facility in North Carolina after convictions in Illinois and New York on charges of child sex crimes and racketeering. Last week, attorney Beau B. Brindley filed an emergency furlough request on the singer's behalf, stating that he was the target of a BOP-related murder plot involving a member or members of the racist Aryan Brotherhood being told to order his killing. The filing included a sworn declaration from Brotherhood honcho Mikeal Glenn Stine, who has been incarcerated since 1982 and said he chose to come clean to Kelly about the alleged plot because he is 'a dying man' with terminal cancer and wanted BOP officials to be held accountable for decades of using inmates for their own purposes. The solution? Brindley asked that his client to be sent to home detention for an unspecified amount of time until the threat is gone. The filing insisted that time was 'of the essence' in a plot that allegedly was hatched in February 2023. That threat, he said in the Monday filing, loomed larger than ever after Kelly was taken to solitary confinement early last week with medicines for sleep and anxiety in his possession, then was given additional medications by prison officials along with instructions on how to take them. Brindley said he filed the initial motion alleging the murder plot two days after that, on June 12. 'In the early morning hours of June 13, 2025, Mr. Kelly awoke,' the additional Monday motion said. 'He felt faint. He was dizzy. He started to see black spots in his vision. Mr. Kelly tried to get up, but fell to the ground. He crawled to the door of the cell and lost consciousness. He was placed on a gurney. Prison officials wanted him to be taken to the on-site medical facility, but staff there could not assist him. Consequently, Mr. Kelly was taken by ambulance to nearby Duke University Hospital. While in the ambulance, he heard one of the prison officers with him state: 'this is going to open a whole new can of worms.'' Kelly learned at the hospital that he had been given a life-threatening overdose amount of medication, Brindley said in the Monday motion. The singer was hospitalized for two days for treatment. '[W]ithin two days of the filing of his [initial] motion, Bureau of Prisons officials administered an amount of medication that significantly exceeded a safe dose and caused Mr. Kelly to overdose, putting his life in jeopardy. They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him,' the Monday motion said. In a response to the Kelly team's initial filing from last week, prosecutors said Tuesday that the singer was asking the court to let him go home indefinitely 'under the guise of a fanciful conspiracy.' They argued that the district court in Illinois doesn't have jurisdiction over Kelly's request for a change in his sentence and therefore need not consider the request. 'The government disputes the fantastic allegations in Kelly's motion,' U.S. Atty. Andrew S. Boutros wrote. 'Kelly is in prison because he is a serial child molester whose criminal abuse of children dates back to at least President Clinton's first term in office — decades before Kelly was taken into federal custody.' Kelly's legal team doubled down on its allegations Tuesday in a reply to that government response, alleging that 'the Federal Bureau of Prisons is taking active steps to kill Robert Kelly' and had 'overdosed Mr. Kelly on medications and nearly killed him,' then 'took him out of a hospital at gunpoint and denied him surgery on blood clots in his lungs that the hospital said needed immediate intervention.' The blood clots reference was related to an allegation that Kelly had been seeking medical care for a swollen leg but had been denied. 'The government doesn't care if R. Kelly is killed in the Bureau of Prisons,' Brindley said in his Tuesday reply. 'They don't care if he dies in solitary confinement. That is obvious. The smug and sanctimonious tenor of their briefing makes that plain. But there is nothing sanctimonious about what is happening to Mr. Kelly.'
Metro
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
R Kelly begged for Trump's help before 'murder plot' that saw him overdose
The lawyers representing disgraced musician R Kelly believe U.S. President Donald Trump is 'the only person with the courage to help us'. The American singer and producer, real name Robert Sylvester Kelly, was once credited as 'the King of R&B'. However, in 2019 his career came to a crashing halt when he was arrested and then sentenced to 31 years behind bars for racketeering and sex trafficking charges involving the sexual abuse of minors. Last week it emerged that Kelly's lawyers had filed an emergency motion calling from his immediate release from federal custody to home detention over concerns his life 'was in danger'. The 58-year-old's attorney Beau B. Brindley claimed they had 'explicit evidence that officials solicited an inmate to murder him while in custody'. It was then reported yesterday that Kelly had been rushed to hospital after overdosing, with his lawyers claiming prison staff intentionally 'gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him.' Here's everything we know so far. For decades Kelly had faced repeated accusations of sexual abuse, also being tried in multiple civil and criminal trials. In 2019 the documentary Surviving R. Kelly re-investigated his alleged sexual misconduct with minors, which lead to authorities looking into the claims made against him again. In 2023 Kelly was then sentenced to 20 years in prison for child sex crimes in Chicago while already serving a 30-year prison sentence over sex trafficking and racketeering charges in New York. The judge ruled he could serve 19 years at the same time, meaning the child sex crimes only added one year to his existing sentence. His convictions included three counts of coercing minors into sexual activity and three of producing sex tapes involving a minor. Last week Kelly's lawyers claimed they had 'explicit evidence that officials solicited an inmate to murder him while in custody'. They filed a motion to get him out of prison immediately after providing a sworn declaration from Mikeal Glenn Stine, a terminally ill inmate, who said that officials 'offered him freedom in his final days in exchange for Kelly's murder'. Stine, a member of the neo-Nazi prison gang Aryan Brotherhood, claimed officials told him he would be charged with Kelly's murder, but that evidence would be mishandled and there would be no conviction. Although Stine said he changed his mind about carrying out the murder, Kelly's lawyers have claimed another member of the gang was then ordered to kill both Kelly and Stine. 'The threat to Mr. Kelly's life continues each day that no action is taken,' they wrote in the filing. A few days later Kelly was rushed to hospital after the overdose, which his lawyers say was orchestrated by prison officials. 'This was no mistake. It was a dose that jeopardised his life and could have ended it. Speaking to People, Brindley said Kelly was 'not safe in federal custody' and keeping him behind bars was 'cruel and unusual punishment'. The Bureau of Prisons and the White House declined to comment when approached by several publications. Last week Brindley said Kelly's legal team had turned to Trump for assistance, explaining he also understood what it felt like to be 'victimised' by the legal system. They are appealing for Kelly to either be granted a pardon or have his sentence commuted. 'We are in open discussions with people close to President Trump. And those discussions have expanded and intensified since we filed our motion,' Brindley told People. In a statement to USA Today, he also said that Trump was the 'only person with the courage and the power to fight corruption in the prosecution of public figures and stomp it out'. Brindley went on to say the need for a pardon became 'more imminent by the day', claiming that Kelly has now been thrown into solitary confinement and 'cannot make phone calls to his family'. He is also reportedly refusing to eat over concerns his food 'could be poisoned'. Although Kelly does not have a personal relationship with Trump, he was a longtime resident of the Trump Tower in Chicago. The President has not yet commented on Kelly's pleas, but did say last month during an Oval Office press briefing that he would consider pardoning Sean 'Diddy' Combs, who is facing similar criminal charges in the same federal court as Kelly. 'I would certainly look at the facts. If I think someone was mistreated it wouldn't matter whether they like me or don't,' he said. More Trending Prosecutors have opposed the request to release Kelly to home detention, sharing in a statement that he was a 'prolific child molester'. 'He is unapologetic about it. Kelly has never taken responsibility for his years of sexually abusing children, and he probably never will.' They called the claims of a murder plot a 'fanciful conspiracy' and said it 'makes a mockery of the harm suffered by his victims.' Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: TV chef Anne Burrell who 'touched millions across the world' dies aged 55 MORE: Tyler Perry sued by actor for sexual misconduct in $260,000,000 lawsuit MORE: Scarlett Johansson tells Metro how she tried not to be 'humongous weirdo' to Spielberg
