Oop! It looks like the survivors of R. Kelly have just won another war in their battle as the disgraced and imprisoned R&B legend has been ordered to pay his sex abuse survivors over $500,000 in songwriting royalties.
According to HipHopDX, court documents obtained by the music and news outlet reportedly reveals that the United States Court in the Northern District of Illinois recently issued a third-party citation to locate assets owned by Universal Music Group, back in May.
Apparently, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music had until June 21 to respond back to interrogatories (a formal set of written questions posed by one litigant that are required to be answered by an adversary).
At the time, the labels were being forced to disclose how much Kelly had in outstanding songwriter royalties, that were to be paid to him. It was later revealed that Universal’s music publishing sector owed the imprisoned singer $567,444.19 in unpaid “music publishing royalties.” Since, the money has reportedly been ordered to be turned over to the courts on Friday (June 30).
Meanwhile, a label source reportedly told Radar Online that the unpaid royalties are now due to be paid to Kelly’s survivors — who have reportedly only received about $27,000 from the disgraced legend, out of $500,000 that he was ordered to hand over as part of his sentence in his New York criminal case.
Nearly a year ago, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and racketeering charges. In February 2023, he was then sentenced to 20 years in prison for child pornography in Chicago. He is currently serving both sentences concurrently in the Butner Federal Prison in North Carolina.
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Furthermore, an alleged rep for Universal reportedly told Radar that the amount of future payments that are owed to the imprisoned singer are unknown because it will depend on the extent to which Kelly’s music continues to be “purchased, downloaded, synchronized or otherwise exploited during future royalty accounting periods.”
The alleged rep also reportedly said that the royalties are accounted on a semi-annual basis. They reportedly added that the royalties owed for January 1 to June 30 are due to be paid on or before September 30, 2023. Then, any further royalties owed from July 2023 to December 2023, should be paid out in March 2024.
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