Attorney Michael Avenatti said Thursday he had given prosecutors a videotape showing singer R. Kelly sexually assaulting an underage girl, reports HuffPost.
“The tape, which is clear, is approximately 45 minutes in length and has never previously been publicly disclosed or, until recently, provided to law enforcement,” Avenatti said in his statement to HuffPost on Thursday. CNN has confirmed that it’s seen the tape that appears to show the singer engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl.
According to Avenatti, the acts took place in Chicago in the late 1990s, when R. Kelly would have been in his late 20s or early 30s, writes HuffPost. The attorney added that the time period in the video is within relevant Illinois statute of limitations. The state's age of consent is 17.
“Below please find a second stmt relating to our investigation of R. Kelly. As a father of two teenage girls myself, I have the utmost faith and confidence in Ms. Foxx [Cook County state's attorney] and her staff to ensure justice is done,” he wrote on Twitter.
Kelly’s attorney Steve Greenberg said in a statement that law enforcement hasn’t contacted him or Kelly and “Mr. Kelly denies that he has engaged in any illegal conduct, of any kind whatsoever,” per HuffPost.
The musician was the subject of the documentary Surviving R. Kelly, which revisited his child pornography trial and featured interviews with women who claim that he sexually abused them.
