R. Kelly pleads not guilty to new charges

Singer R. Kelly on Thursday pleaded not guilty to 11 new counts of sexual abuse in Chicago, according to CBS News.

The charges, brought by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office last week, bring the total pending charges against the singer to 21, four of which are aggravated criminal sexual assault. The new charges pertain to allegations from Jerhonda Pace, who has accused Kelly of abusing her in 2010, when she was a minor. Pace recounted her allegations in the 2019 Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”

{mosads}”We pled not guilty to all of the charges because he’s not guilty,” Kelly’s attorney Steve Greenberg said during a press conference after the hearing. “I think he’s feeling positive. It’s tough. Everything is against him.”

The judge told Kelly his total composite bond of $1 million was “a sufficient bond” and would stand and reminded him his next court date is set for June 26. “You’re out on bond. It’s incumbent upon you to appear in court on each and every court date,” he told the singer, according to CBS News.

Kelly earlier pleaded not guilty in February to 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse alleged to have taken place over about a decade, beginning in the late 1990s. Three of his accusers were under the age of 17 when the alleged incidents took place.

In March, a combative interview between Kelly and CBS’s Gayle King went viral, in which he loudly denied the allegations and told her he was “fighting for my f—ing life.”