A sex tape showing R&B star R. Kelly allegedly assaulting an underage girl has been turned over to law enforcement in Cook County, an attorney investigating the matter said Thursday.
Los Angeles-based attorney Michael Avenatti issued a statement Thursday saying that his firm was retained last April by several people who alleged they were sexually assaulted by Kelly. The 10-month investigation, Avenatti said, “has now resulted in the discovery of significant new evidence conclusively establishing Mr. Kelly’s illegal sexual assault of young girls.”
“Further, the time frame of sexual assaults depicted in the video is within the Illinois statute of limitations,” he added.
RELATED: More coverage of the R. Kelly investigation[1]
Avenatti says his firm found a previously unknown, 45-minute video that clearly shows Kelly “engaging in multiple sexual assaults of a girl underage.” The tape, witnesses and other information were turned over to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The state’s attorney’s office would not immediately comment Thursday, and Kelly’s attorney, Steve Greenberg, did not respond to a request for comment. Greenberg previously told the Sun-Times: “Mr. Kelly did not sexually abuse anybody, at any time.”
The tape’s existence was first reported in the New Yorker in a story by former Sun-Times reporter Jim DeRogatis[2], who first broke the news[3] of Kelly’s alleged sexual impropriety in 2000. Kelly was acquitted of charges in 2008 over another sex tape that officials claimed showed him engaging in sex acts with a 14-year-old girl.
Citing an anonymous senior law enforcement official, the New Yorker reports that legal action against Kelly could be forthcoming. Chicago police could not confirm that Thursday afternoon.
Kelly has repeatedly denied any allegations of wrongdoing.
Last month, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx made a public plea for accusers to come forward so that the office could investigate. Foxx said she was “sickened” by the accounts described in the “Surviving R. Kelly” Lifetime television series, but said she has not — and cannot — open a criminal probe in the absence of cooperating witnesses.
RELATED: A timeline of the R. Kelly child pornography case[4]
After Foxx’s plea, at least two women contacted the state’s attorney’s office with new allegations, although one later told the Sun-Times she was not going to pursue a case at that time.
Even decades-old allegations could be trouble for Kelly. State lawmakers in 2017 eliminated the statute of limitations for prosecutors to charge sex crimes against children, in the wake of revelations of abuse of students by former U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that dated back to the 1970s.
The law got rid of the 20-year window to file charges in child sex cases for all cases from 1997 forward, meaning that even illicit sexual encounters that took place months before the videotaped sex acts that led to his 2008 trial on child pornography could still be grounds for prosecution. At trial, witnesses testified that Kelly was in a sexual relationship with the then 15-year-old girl in the video as early as 1998.
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