Lawyers for R Kelly said in recent court filings that the criminally convicted R&B singer suffered an “overdose” of medication at the hands of prison officials. Kelly is currently serving a 30-year-prison sentence at a facility in North Carolina. He was found guilty of myriad crimes including federal racketeering and sex trafficking of minors. His lawyers alleged in a flurry of filings Monday and Tuesday that Kelly was in solitary confinement when prison staff instructed him to take an “overdose quantity of medication” on June 12.

The 58-year-old became “faint” and “dizzy” by the next morning, the filing alleges. “Mr Kelly tried to get up, but fell to the ground. He crawled to the door of the cell and lost consciousness,” his attorneys said. The court papers say Kelly was taken in an ambulance to Duke University Hospital and that he was under treatment for two days. Queried by AFP, the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment.

“For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not discuss the conditions of confinement for any incarcerated individual, including medical and health-related issues. Additionally, the Bureau of Prisons does not comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings,” the office said in a statement. Kelly’s lawyers had previously filed an emergency motion for release to home detention, saying that the once-famous artist was the target of a murder plot orchestrated by prison officials.

In opposing the request, government attorneys called the accusations “fanciful” and “theatrical.” The request “makes a mockery of the harm suffered by Kelly’s victims,” the Chicago federal lawyers said, adding that it wasn’t filed in the correct court with the jurisdiction to even entertain the accusations. Kelly was convicted in 2021 in New York federal court for using an enterprise to systematically recruit and traffic teenagers and women for sex.

The singer known for hits including “I Believe I Can Fly” was then convicted one year later in Chicago federal court in a separate trial, in which jurors found him guilty of producing child pornography and enticement of a minor. He is currently serving the New York prison sentence, and will serve almost all of the Chicago sentence concurrently.—AFP