R. Kelly is sitting in “the hole” at a North Carolina federal prison while his lawyers push claims of an assassination plot, a suspicious overdose and government misconduct in his bid for a new trial.
Kelly is serving a 30-year federal sentence from his New York racketeering and sex trafficking conviction, along with a separate 20-year Chicago sentence for child pornography and enticement, most of which runs at the same time.
He is currently housed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, where prison officials recently transferred him to the Special Housing Unit over what court filings describe as an undisclosed infraction.
In federal prison slang, the Special Housing Unit is known as “the hole,” a segregated wing where inmates spend up to 23 hours a day locked in a cell under tight restrictions.
Placement in the SHU sharply limits phone access, in-person visits and access to legal materials, and it is typically used for disciplinary reasons or pending investigations into alleged rule violations.
AllHipHop has learned that R. Kelly’s attorney, Beau Brindley, traveled to Butner to review evidence connected to Kelly’s motion for a new trial and to prepare a required reply brief.
Brindley told the court that roughly 30 minutes before he arrived for a scheduled legal visit, prison officials placed Kelly in the Special Housing Unit without explaining the alleged infraction.
When Brindley finally met with his client, he wrote that Kelly lacked access to his legal documents, making it impossible to review the evidence or prepare the filing.
The disruption came as Kelly moved for a new trial in Chicago federal court, accusing prosecutors of misconduct. He claims that Bureau of Prisons officials conspired to have him killed inside the federal prison system.
AllHipHop broke the original story: R. Kelly’s legal team alleges that members of the Aryan Brotherhood were approached and offered incentives to assassinate him.
According to the singer, a high-ranking gang member refused to carry out the alleged plan and indicated he would be willing to testify about the approach if necessary.
Kelly’s attorneys also describe what they characterize as an attempted overdose that occurred after he was placed in solitary confinement within the facility.
They allege that he was given medication in a quantity that triggered a medical emergency, leading to his transport to Duke University Hospital for treatment.
Doctors treated R. Kelly for blood clots in his lungs and legs, according to the filings and his lawyers contend that officials later removed him from the hospital and returned him to isolation.
Kelly previously asked the court for immediate release while his new trial motion is pending, arguing that the alleged threats and medical issues place his life in danger.
A federal judge denied that request for release, and prosecutors have dismissed the assassination and overdose claims as unfounded and unrelated to the underlying convictions.
The motion for a new trial remains pending.
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