R. Kelly

Illinois Prosecutors Make Plan for 1st R. Kelly Trial

Cook County prosecutors had to choose which of the four sex abuse cases they plan to take to trial first

R. Kelly
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R. Kelly's trial in Cook County in September will begin with charges alleging he sexually abused his hair dresser, prosecutors revealed in court Wednesday.

Kelly did not appear at the hearing due to a "medical procedure," his attorney Steve Greenberg said.

A Cook County judge ordered the singer to stand trial on one of four sexual abuse cases on Sept. 14. The first of four separate indictments prosecutors plan to take to trial is one involving Lanita Carter, who spoke publicly about her allegations after the charges surfaced.

Carter alleges that on Feb. 18, 2003, Kelly tried to force her to perform oral sex on him and spit on her while she worked as his hairdresser.

The 52-year-old singer is already scheduled to stand trial in federal court in Chicago in April and again in federal court in Brooklyn.

Kelly was charged by Cook County prosecutors last March with sexually abusing three minor girls and one woman over a period of more than a decade.

Then in July, in federal court in Chicago, the R&B singer was indicted on charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice, with prosecutors accusing him of paying off potential witnesses in his 2008 trial - at which he was acquitted — to get them to change his story.

At the same time, he was indicted in New York on charges that include racketeering, kidnapping, forced labor and the sexual exploitation of a charges. Prosecutors alleged he and his employees and assistants picked out women and girls at concerts and groomed them for sexual abuse.

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