R. Kelly Reportedly Slammed His Former Legal Team For Selecting Jurors Who Saw “Surviving R. Kelly”
Looks like R. Kelly had some words for his former legal team in a recently filed statement for allegedly picking numerous jurors who “may” have seen Surviving R. Kelly. The documentary series that presented the long history of abuse allegations that have been made against the R&B singer.
“At certain points during jury selection, I did hear that some jurors may have seen the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries and that concerned me greatly,” Kelly wrote, according to the New York Daily News. “I raised my concerns with my attorneys but they shooed me off. I was nothing more than a bystander in the process. … There was no strategy involved in choosing the jurors that sat on my jury as far as I could tell. At least there was no trial strategy that involved my input.”
Kelly got rid of his previous legal team and hired a new lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, who argues his client was never provided a fair trial because of the release of Surviving R. Kelly.
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“Because defendant was forced to defend against dozens of uncharged claims of abusive and sexual misbehavior—much of it lawful albeit unpalatable for some—defendant was stripped of the presumption of innocence and denied a fair trial,” Bonjean explained in a court memo last month. “But that is not all, Defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel when his attorneys failed to file adequate pre-trial objections to the introduction of the mass of overly prejudicial propensity evidence and routinely failed to lodge timely objections to some (although not all) of the damning bad-act evidence.”
Kelly’s sentencing is planned to take place on May 4. He faces a maximum of life in prison.