R. Kelly was taken off the suicide watch in Brooklyn’s federal prison
Following a clinical evaluation, R. Kelly was taken off suicide watch on Tuesday morning, according to a letter submitted by the prosecution in federal court.
The disgraced R&B performer was put on suicide watch after being given a 30-year prison term last week for sex trafficking and racketeering, according to court documents submitted on Saturday.
According to court filings, Robert Sylvester Kelly, 55, who goes by Kelly, sued the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, its warden, unspecified personnel, and the United States for putting him under suicide watch surveillance.
Kelly said, in the federal government’s response to his case, that he was “put on suicide watch as a means of punishment even though he was not suicidal.”
According to court documents, Kelly’s claims should be rejected because they “fail to establish a considerable possibility of success for relief,” according to the prison’s legal representatives. Kelly met the requirements to be placed under supervision, thus the prison intended to keep him under suicide watch, according to the court filings.
Kelly, according to the government, was requesting that the courts interfere with professional prison administrators’ discretion when making custody decisions.
Prosecutors claimed in the letter that because Kelly was released from the imprisonment under suicide watch, his legal case is no longer relevant. The letter also mentions Kelly’s impending transfer from MDC to the Northern District of Illinois for his trial.
The Eastern District of New York US Attorney’s Office refuses to provide any additional information on the matter.
In September, a jury found Kelly guilty on nine counts, including one for racketeering and eight for breaking the Mann Act, which prohibits sex trafficking. Kelly was charged with using his famous status and “network of people at his disposal to target kids, boys, and young women for his personal sexual enjoyment,” according to prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York.
Witnesses testified during the five-week federal trial in Brooklyn that Kelly had assaulted them physically and sexually. The notorious R&B musician married the late singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was only 15 years old and he was an adult after she thought she had gotten pregnant, according to witnesses testifying in court.
Kelly will be moved to the custody of the Northern District of Illinois after her August trial in Illinois on federal child pornography and obstruction charges, according to court records.