Celebrity News

R. Kelly accused of having sex with minor in latest federal charges

The legal hits just keep coming for embattled singer R. Kelly.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn filed new charges against the R&B singer on Friday, accusing him of having sex with one of his alleged victims when she was a minor and giving her genital herpes.

The new charges pertain to a female identified in court papers as Jane Doe No. 5, who the 53-year-old Kelly allegedly transported across state lines for the purposes of sex in 2015, while she was still a minor.

The “I Believe I Can Fly” crooner had also been accused of giving genital herpes to Faith Rodgers, who had sex with Kelly in 2017, when she was 19 years old.

Rodgers is identified in Kelly’s Brooklyn federal court indictment as Jane Doe No. 6 but has gone public with her allegations and has filed a lawsuit against the disgraced R&B icon in Manhattan Supreme Court.

As for Jane Doe No. 5, Kelly was also hit on Friday with a new charge of coercing her to have sex with him while she was a minor, which carries a 10-year-minimum sentence.

Steve Greenberg, Kelly’s Windy City-based lawyer, said the new charges amount to the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn “fine tuning” its indictment against his client.

“It doesn’t really change the basic allegations and it doesn’t really change our approach,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg recently filed papers in Brooklyn arguing that a New York state law prohibiting people with sexually-transmitted diseases from having sex is unconstitutional because it invades privacy.

Brooklyn federal Judge Ann Donnelly has not yet ruled on Greenberg’s motion.

In addition to his charges in Brooklyn, Kelly also faces legal beefs in Chicago and Minneapolis. The updated indictment in Brooklyn was filed one week after federal prosecutors in Chicago filed new charges there.

No date has been set for an arraignment on the new charges and his trial in Brooklyn is scheduled for July.