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.