Heather Williams: Last News

Federal prosecutors in New York yesterday asked a judge to issue an order allowing them to claim royalties due to R Kelly from Sony Music and Universal Music Publishing to pay off fines and restitution linked to his conviction in the US state.Kelly, of course, was found guilty in a New York court of establishing and running a criminal enterprise in order to sexually and physically abuse women and teenagers.It was the first of two convictions that stemmed from the criminal investigations launched after the ‘Surviving R Kelly’ documentary aired, it putting the abuse allegations that had surrounded the music star for decades back into the spotlight. The second conviction was in his home town of Chicago.In the New York case, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in jail and ordered to pay $480,000 in fines and restitution.

his conviction in the New York courts back in 2021, where the former musician was found guilty of running of a criminal enterprise in order to sexually and physically abuse women and teenagers.Responding to this week’s court order, Kelly’s current legal rep, Jennifer Bonjean, stressed that her client is appealing this conviction – and another one that resulted from a separate trial in Chicago – and that when the appeals courts “reverse Mr Kelly’s convictions, we will seek the return of every cent that has been wrongfully taken from him”.Prosecutors began legal action last year to seize funds from Kelly in order to pay off fines that were part of the sentence in the New York case. They initially went after monies that were sitting in Kelly’s prison inmate account.

Heather Williams, one of R Kelly’s sexual abuse victims, will be able to claim royalties due to the musician from Sony Music in lieu of a damages payment she is owed following a successful lawsuit.Those royalties had been claimed by a bank which is also owed money by the jailed former pop star, but the Illinois Supreme Court last week ruled that Williams’ damages should take priority.Kelly was sued by Williams in February 2019. She alleged that she first met Kelly in 1998 when she was sixteen and initially agreed to spend time with him at his studio because he promised to put her in a music video.However the video never happened and instead they began a sexual relationship which Williams subsequently recognised as sexual abuse.

A new R Kelly album briefly appeared on the streaming services last week with the provocative title of ‘I Admit It’. However, legal reps for the jailed musician have denied that he had any involvement in the release, which was basically a compilation of tracks from Kelly’s archives, a number of which had been officially posted online in the past.When ‘I Admit It’ arrived on the digital platforms it was listed as being released by Legacy Recordings, which is a label owned by Kelly’s former record company Sony Music.

R Kelly has been accused of fraudulently selling his music rights to a childhood friend in order to avoid that intellectual property from being used to cover the damages he was ordered to pay as a result of civil litigation over allegations of sexual abuse.The musician was sued by Heather Williams in February 2019, a month after the screening of the ‘Surviving R Kelly’ programme that prompted various new criminal investigations into the many allegations of sexual abuse that had been made against the star over the years.Those criminal investigations, of course, have resulted in two high profile trials to date, in both Chicago and New York. In the former he was found guilty of enticing minors to engage in criminal sexual activity and of filming that abuse.