As of this morning, R. Kelly faces a new public allegation of sexual misconduct from a woman who says the 51-year-old R&B singer infected her with a sexually transmitted disease and “groomed” her to join his “sex cult” during an eight-month relationship that began last June, when the woman was 19 years old. According to her attorney, the unnamed woman has filed a police report in Dallas, where the STD transmission allegedly took place, and is preparing a federal civil complaint. A representative for the Dallas Police Department tells Spin, “I can just confirm that we are looking into a reported incident.”
Kelly’s personal life has come under increasing scrutiny since a Buzzfeed report last summer detailed the alleged “sex cult” of young women who live with Kelly near Atlanta and Chicago; the women’s parents believe their daughters are being manipulated, abused, and prevented from contacting family. Following the explosive report, at least one local Georgia official called for a criminal investigation of Kelly, but the district attorney later said that no such investigation was taking place. Kelly has repeatedly denied all allegations of misconduct, calling them “crap.”
Last August, when police and family members visited one of Kelly’s Atlanta-area houses to conduct a welfare check on one of the women named in Buzzfeed’s report, they were told she was not there. That woman, Jocelyn Savage, later told authorities via FaceTime that she was fine and did not want to speak to her family. In December, two of Kelly’s other Atlanta-area homes were burglarized, and in February, Kelly was evicted from the two properties after reportedly falling behind on rent. Neither of those houses are the ones where the women described in the Buzzfeed report were allegedly being held.
Update (4:30 p.m. Eastern): The Dallas Police Department provided the following statement regarding its inquiry into the newest allegation against R. Kelly:
On April 9, 2018, a 20-year-old female complainant came to Jack Evans Police Headquarters to report an incident between her and an adult male that was alleged to have occurred in December 2017. The complainant stated she was in a consensual sexual relationship with an adult male who knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Dallas. Detectives with the Crimes Against Persons Division are working with the Dallas County District Attorney’s office to review this incident. This incident is not being investigated as a sexual assault since both parties were consenting adults.
