This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News Legal
R Kelly accused of intentionally infecting woman with STD
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 18 April 2018
A woman has begun legal action against R Kelly, claiming that he intentionally infected her with a sexually transmitted disease. She also claims to have ended their eleven month relationship earlier this year after realising that she was being “groomed to join [his] sex cult”.
She filed a complaint with the Dallas Police Department last week and is also preparing a civil lawsuit against the musician. Kelly denies the allegations.
In a statement, the woman’s lawyer, Lee Merritt, says that his client “was the victim of several forms of criminal misconduct by Kelly, including, but not limited to, unlawful restraint, furnishing alcohol and illegal drugs to a minor, and aggravated assault (via the referenced intentional STD infection)”.
He continues: “These offenses occurred while our client was being groomed to join Kelly’s sex cult. Kelly gradually introduced the cult to our client over the course of their relationship, culminating with an explanation that she would have to sign a contract and offer collateral information about herself and her family for Kelly’s protection”.
Numerous sexual abuse allegations have been made against Kelly over the years, including accusations involving underage girls. He has always denied any wrongdoing and when specifically charged over claims he had filmed the sexual abuse of an underage girl, he was acquitted in 2008.
However, the musician has nevertheless been on the receiving end of many civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, most of which have been settled out of court. American journalist Jim DeRogatis has been prolific in documenting the various accusations and litigation, most recently in a piece for Buzzfeed last year.
Last month, a BBC Three documentary detailed various accusations against Kelly, some of them new, including that he sexually abused a girl from the age of fourteen, later boasting to another woman that he had “trained” the girl to be his “pet”.
Merrit is set to host a news conference about the new legal action against Kelly at the Dallas Police headquarters later today.
