R. Kelly’s emergency motion for home detention in an effort to protect him from what he claims is a “widespread conspiracy” to have him killed was denied by a judge on Thursday, who said his claims were not backed up by evidence.
The disgraced R&B singer’s request would see him taken out of prison and on temporary furlough. Judge Martha M. Pacold’s upholding of Judge Harry Leinenweber’s 2023 sentencing of 240 months of imprisonment came one week after Kelly was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on prescription medication given to him by prison staff.
On June 10, Kelly’s attorneys filed a motion claiming, in part, that the officials at the singer’s North Carolina prison recruited an inmate to kill him to stop him from revealing an alleged plot to steal his mail and turn witnesses against him from his 2022 trial.
It was then revealed Tuesday that the singer was hospitalized last week after losing consciousness while in solitary confinement, the disgraced singer’s lawyers said in legal filings. Guards at a federal correctional facility in Butner, North Carolina, gave the “Ignition” singer an “overdose quantity” of sleep and anti-anxiety medications last Thursday, according to documents obtained by TheWrap, an incident that occurred just days after his legal team’s emergency motion for his release.
The filing also says Kelly was removed from a Durham hospital against medical advice. The Bureau of Prisons declined TheWrap’s request for comment on the pending litigation.
Judge Pacold said in her ruling Thursday denying Kelly’s motion that she did not have jurisdiction to rule on the singer’s claims of the murder plot, only on his conviction or sentencing. And that while he has “filed several supplements alleging subsequent developments in the plot on his life, none … attach evidence.”
“Kelly is currently housed at FCI Butner, which is located in Butner, North Carolina — outside this judicial district,” Pacold wrote. “Kelly has not demonstrated a legal basis for this court’s jurisdiction. Accordingly, his emergency motion … is denied.”
