R. Kelly wants immediate release from prison because he believes that federal authorities want to kill him.
The incarcerated singer’s attorneys requested that President Trump help get him out of federal custody via an emergency motion that was filed in Chicago today (June 10).
They allege that federal authorities conspired to steal his correspondence with the legal team in order to pressure his former girlfriend to testify against him, according to Variety.
R. Kelly’s lawyers also claim that the authorities recruited a white supremacist to murder him while he’s in prison.
In a sworn statement from R. Kelly's team, terminally ill inmate Mikeal Glenn Stine, who's a leader of an Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, claimed that federal authorities offered him freedom to spend his last days outside of the prison if he killed the singer.
Stine allegedly told the authorities he was willing to commit the murder, but instead told Kelly about the plot and warned him about the danger to his life.
"R. Kelly's life is now threatened, because of his willingness to fight and to expose the very kind of corruption that President Trump has been fighting and standing up to since the day he took that office," Kelly's attorney, Beau Brindley, said at a press conference. "We will ask President Trump to help us."
Brindley revealed that he wants to skirt around the normal process for clemency to request a direct pardon from the president.
"We are seeking a conversation with the president, because R. Kelly does not have the time, with his life in danger, to go through the normal channels," Brindley said. "We are seeking talks with the White House. We are seeking talks with everybody who is willing to help us."
R. Kelly is currently incarcerated due to a 30-year sentence in New York City after he was found guilty of nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking in 2022.
Two months after his sentencing, the singer was found guilty of three counts of production of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity in Chicago. He’s facing a separate 20-year sentence for these charges.
