R Kelly in police custody after being charged with 10 counts of sexual abuse
Indictment filed in Illinois and seen by Guardian includes nine counts involving victims aged between 13 and 17
R Kelly is in police custody in Chicago after turning himself in at the Chicago police precinct on Friday night.
Earlier in the day, the R&B star had been charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Illinois for incidents dating back as far as May 1998.
Numerous women have accused Kelly, 52, of sexual abuse over the past 20 years but he has only appeared before a judge once.
The new charges, filed in Cook county, include nine counts of sexual abuse of three victims aged between 13 and 17, according to court documents seen by the Guardian. The 10th count did not specify the age of the fourth victim.
The singer, born Robert Kelly, is expected to appear in court for a bond hearing on Saturday, said the Cook county state’s attorney, Kim Foxx.
Kelly, who was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008, has consistently denied any sexual misconduct.
“He is extraordinarily disappointed and depressed. He is shellshocked by this,” Steve Greenberg, Kelly’s attorney, said.
The charging documents describe contact between Kelly’s penis and the mouths, sex organs and breasts of victims aged 13 to 17.
The incidents occurred between May 1998 to May 1999; September 1998 to September 2001; May 2009 to January 2010; and in February 2003.
Multiple women have accused Kelly of violent and controlling behavior, including allegations he had sex with girls as young as 14 and brainwashed young women in what their parents described as a “cult”.
A recently aired documentary, Surviving R Kelly, featured testimony from some of these women and prompted new investigations.
On Thursday, two additional women came forward to accuse Kelly of sexual abuse.
The women, Latresa Scaff and Rochelle Washington, said they were teenagers in Baltimore, Maryland, when Kelly brought them back to his hotel after a concert, exposed himself to them and had sex with Scaff, who was under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.
The women said they never saw or heard from Kelly again after they left the hotel.
Kelly has previously denied wrongdoing. He recorded a song last year professing his innocence, singing: “I’m so falsely accused.”
In 2008, he appeared before a judge after being accused of making child abuse images by filming sexual encounters, including one in which he allegedly urinated over an underage girl. A jury was not able to identify beyond doubt the man or the girl in the video, and Kelly was acquitted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report