R. Kelly’s supervisor sentenced to jail for stalking and harassing one of many singer’s victims

R. Kelly’s supervisor Donnell Russell was sentenced to twenty months in jail yesterday (November 17), after pleading responsible to stalking and harassing one of many singer’s sexual abuse victims.

In accordance with the Division of Justice, Russell was charged with interstate stalking and using telephone calls, emails and textual content messages to harass the sufferer, recognized solely as Jane Doe. The prosecution alleged that Russell stalked and harassed Doe and her mom in an try to forestall her from coming ahead with accusations towards Kelly.

Talking of the fees in a press assertion, US Lawyer Breon Peace stated Russell had “used threats, harassment and intimidation in a deliberate effort to silence one in every of R. Kelly’s victims and forestall her voice from being heard.”

The costs stem from Russell’s menace to launch sexually specific pictures of the lady if she didn’t withdraw her civil lawsuit go well with towards Kelly. The incidents allegedly happened between November 2018 and February 2020.

Throughout that point, Russell despatched a textual content message to the sufferer telling her to “Pull the plug otherwise you’ll be uncovered”. Russell additionally used an alias to create a Fb web page known as ‘Surviving Lies’, to which he posted the photographs of the sufferer. The title of the web page is a reference to Surviving R. Kelly, the 2019 docuseries which uncovered the singer’s historical past of sexual abuse. On a separate event in 2020, Russell displayed the pictures throughout two livestreams.

“[Russell] continued his vile marketing campaign by sending threatening messages to Jane Doe and her mom,” Peace stated of the incidents, “and publishing specific pictures of the sufferer on the web earlier than and after Kelly was indicted.” Peace described Russell’s conduct as “reprehensible” and “prison”, and stated it “won’t be tolerated.”

Elaborating on the fees in his personal assertion, Homeland Safety Investigations Appearing Particular Agent-in-Cost Ricky J. Patel stated Russell “repeatedly and purposefully” tried to silence the sufferer from exposing “the emotional and bodily trauma” perpetrated on her by Kelly. Russell first pleaded responsible to 1 cost of interstate stalking in July of this yr.

In July, Russell was convicted on a seperate cost regarding a gun menace he made in 2018, when he sought to disrupt a screening of Surviving R. Kelly in New York Metropolis. The supervisor faces as much as 5 years in jail for that cost, with sentencing resulting from happen on November 21.

It comes months after Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in jail following his conviction final yr on prices of intercourse trafficking and racketeering. Final month, the singer was ordered to pay not less than $309,000 (£287,000) in restitution to 2 of his victims.