Culture

R. Kelly Misses Hearing; Nothing Happens

by Jordan Yerman | December 22, 2007 at 04:12 pm

427 views | 0 Recommendations | 2 comments

One way to avoid jail time is to hold the livelihoods of others in your hands. Works rather well for pop stars and A-listers, for whom a tour or production shut-down means the loss of a job for an army of production assistants, designers, extras, security staff, and the rest of the solar system that revolves around a major entertainment production, all of whom work on a per-production basis.

A day after the R&B star avoided jail for missing hearing in his long-playing kiddie-porn case, Kelly on Friday managed to keep his bond intact and, in turn, his tour on track.

Over the objection of Chicago prosecutors, who called Kelly's unexcused absence earlier in this week another example of the Grammy winner's "brazenness," Cook County Criminal Court Judge Vincent Gaughan decided to allow the singer to remain free on $750,000 bond and thereby continue on his 45-city road show.

Kelly is facing fourteen counts of child pornography stemming from a videotape that allegedly depicts him having sex with an underage girl.

Kelly also avoided having his bond revoked Friday morning. Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan had threatened to do so after chiding the singer for missing a hearing on Wednesday after his tour bus was stopped in Utah for a speeding infraction. An arrest warrant had been issued for the R&B singer, who avoided going to jail when he showed for a 9 a.m. court date on Thursday, but Gaughan threatened to revoke the bond anyway.

The charges against Kelly are serious; he faces up to fifteen years behind bars if found guilty.

[The video to the right contains profanity from literally the first second- if you're under 14, it's best to give this (and R Kelly in general) a miss]

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Karen Hatter

at 16:30 on December 22nd, 2007

What happened? They had a bench warrant!

djsblack

at 18:07 on December 22nd, 2007

Bench warrants are considered quasi-criminal and are enforced soley by the Judge who orders them. Not much teeth are associated with them--as they only compel the person to appear in court. They are not intended to incarcerate them as would be the case in a criminal proceeding, although that could be a possibility.