R. Kelly appeared in court in Chicago Tuesday for a hearing on the state sex-crime charges against him, only to listen as a lawyer for the friend who posted his bond demanded her money back.
But Valencia Love, who put up $100,000 in February so Kelly could be bailed in the Cook County case against him, will not get her money back, Judge Lawrence Flood ruled, according to The Associated Press.
Flood said Love signed a bond slip which explicitly warns she could lose that money even if Kelly met the conditions of his bond, because a judge might order the money be used to pay his attorney’s fees, court costs, fines or other expenses.
Flood also denied a motion by prosecutors to boost Kelly’s $1 million bond. It was mostly a symbolic gesture since Kelly is locked up on federal charges and has been denied bond in those two cases.
“At this particular time, it’s kind of a moot point,” Flood said.
Kelly, 52, is facing four sets of state and federal sex-crime charges against him in three states.
Love’s attorney, John Collins, appeared at the hearing to tell Flood his client had no knowledge of the federal investigations in New York or Illinois when she posted bond, and that Kelly is a man of “vast resources.”
Collins said Love now fears losing all her money as charges against Kelly stack up.
“There’s been a substantial change of circumstances,” Collins said. “In this instance, he’s held no bond, so the purposes of the bond are frustrated in Illinois.” Since Kelly is now being held without bond on the federal charges, Collins said, “there’s no need to have her money sitting in deposit.”
Kelly has claimed he’s broke. Besides Love’s contribution to his bond, he also needed help to pay off an overdue child-support payment.
Love, 47, who met Kelly on a Lake Michigan boat cruise, told local reporters in February that she posted 10% of Kelly’s bond because he is a “good friend.” She also claimed at that time that the cash she handed over was all Kelly’s money, but declined to elaborate.
Kelly appeared in court in an orange jail jumpsuit. He was indicted in Cook County in February on multiple counts of sexual abuse of underage girls.
His bond had been set at $1 million but prosecutors had filed a motion to raise it. Although Flood denied the state’s bond motion, he said he may revisit the issue if circumstances change in the federal cases.
Kelly has been locked up in a federal detention center in Chicago since July, when he was indicted on two sets of federal crimes, including child pornography, sex-trafficking and obstruction of justice, in Illinois and in New York.
He was denied bond by judges in both federal cases.
Kelly was a no-show last week in Minneapolis where he was supposed to make a first appearance on child prostitution charges. But federal prosecutors in Chicago declined to make him available and a judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
The next hearing in Kelly’s case in Cook County was scheduled for Dec. 4, but Kelly is not required to be there.
.USA Today