The visibly anguished parents of an alleged victim of R. Kelly confronted a spokesman for the singer Friday during a news conference held following Kelly’s latest arrest on new federal child pornography and racketeering charges.
“Where’s my daughter at? Answer that question!” Timothy Savage, father of 23-year-old Joycelyn Savage, yelled as Kelly publicist Darrell Johnson was speaking to reporters in Atlanta, CNN and Associated Press news wires reported.
Savage and his wife, Jonjelyn, are among numerous families who allege their daughters are being controlled and held captive by Kelly. Many of their accounts, including the Savages’, were broadcast earlier this year in Lifetime’s explosive docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly.
The matter of control is at the heart of new federal charges detailed against the singer Friday. As the Chicago Tribune reports, Kelly was picked up in Chicago late Thursday as he walked his dog near his home in the Trump Tower there.
He was arrested and jailed to face charges in two federal indictments, one out of Chicago and one out of New York.
The Chicago case revolves around allegations he faced years ago that he urinated on a 14-year-old girl in a sex tape. Now, authorities are hitting Kelly with federal child pornography and obstruction of justice charges, according to the New York Times, accusing Kelly of paying the girl and her family thousands of dollars over some dozen years to keep her quiet.
Additionally, as the Tribune explains, the Chicago case:
alleges Kelly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to recover child-sex tapes and that he pressured witnesses to change their stories before his pornography trial that ended in acquittal a decade ago.
But it’s the New York indictment that could really cost Kelly if convicted.
Per the Tribune:
The New York indictment, unsealed Friday, alleges a racketeering conspiracy in which he and his associates recruited women and underage girls for illegal sexual contact with Kelly, then isolated them and threatened them to keep them under his control.
As of Friday, Kelly was being held in a Chicago jail. He is to return to court Tuesday for arraignment, where it will be decided if he will get bond or be held at least until he is taken to New York to face the charges there.
Kelly still faces almost two dozen state charges of sexual assault regarding four women, three of whom were underage at the time of the alleged crimes. However, as the Tribune reports, the outcome of those charges may be delayed as the federal cases make their way through the courts.
Kelly has maintained his innocence throughout, and on Friday, his publicist, Johnson, continued that stance. He said the latest charges were a “rehash” of previous charges, according to news wire reports.
To the Savages’ pleadings, Johnson indicated he did not know the location of their daughter, but offered to speak with them privately after the news conference.