The American authorities indicted Friday the manager of R. Kelly for having threatened to shoot in a New York cinema in order to prevent the broadcast of a documentary implicating the singer for multiple alleged sexual assaults.
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The announcement comes days after R. Kelly’s friend and manager, Donnell Russell, and two other suspected accomplices were indicted by US justice for seeking to silence several women accusing the former R&B star sexual assault.
According to new documents released Friday, Russell called a Manhattan movie theater in December 2018, threatening to start a shooting at the facility in order to prevent the release of the prosecution documentary “Surviving R. Kelly”.
His appeal had led to an evacuation of the cinema, which had given up showing the documentary, in which women accused the interpreter of “I Believe I Can Fly” of sexual assault.
“Mr. Rusell was successful, through his alleged violent threats, in stopping a broadcast of the documentary, but he failed to silence the women who appear in the film,” said William Sweeney, an official in a statement. head of the US Federal Police (FBI) in New York.
Days earlier, federal prosecutors said Donnell Russell had also been involved in blackmail and harassment to silence some accusers.
The techniques employed included setting a car in front of the residence of one of them, threats to disclose intimate photographs and paying $ 500,000 to influence a testimony.
Donnell Russell faces two new charges for his alleged threats to New York cinema, each leading to a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
He is expected before a New York judge on Friday.
For his part, R. Kelly faces federal prosecution in two separate cases – one in Chicago and the other in New York – related to charges of child sexual abuse, which he dismisses.
Jury selection for his trial in New York is scheduled for September 29, but that date will likely be pushed back due to restrictions linked to the Covid-19 epidemic.
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