R. Kelly’s Attorney Asks Judge to Postpone Sex Trafficking Trial Over Mandatory Jail Quarantine

R. Kelly’s attorneys have requested that a court postpones the singer’s sex trafficking trial, which is due to begin next month.

According to the Associated Press, lawyer Deveraux Cannick wrote to U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly on Tuesday, claiming that the singer’s mandatory jail confinement—which ends today—has prohibited them from preparing for trial. Kelly was relocated to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late last month from a facility in Chicago.

Cannick claims that his client is “anxious” to go to court, but not at the expense of his Sixth Amendment rights. Kelly and his legal team will be obliged to conduct business using one of a limited number of jail conference rooms after the required quarantine ends. They’ll be forced to hold meetings among other detainees and attorneys if no such area is available when they need it.

Donnelly approved Kelly’s transportation to New York City for the trial in April. Kelly was being imprisoned on similar charges in Chicago previous to the trip to New York and was scheduled to go to trial for those claims in September as of late December. Two lead attorneys working with Kelly in his federal case in Brooklyn asked to resign in June.

While Kelly has been accused of sexual abuse since the 1990s, including allegations involving minors, the premiere of the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly heightened public awareness in the allegations in 2019.

Kelly has refuted the claims against him. Meanwhile, in February of this year, a colleague admitted to bribing a witness not to testify. In April, another acquaintance admitted to setting fire to an SUV rented by the father of one of his accusers.