R. Kelly is a no show at court hearing on sex-crime charges; arrest warrant issued

R. Kelly failed to appear in court in Minneapolis on Thursday to face two sex-crime charges, leading to a bench warrant issued for his arrest.

Kelly was to make his first appearance in Hennepin County, Minnesota, on charges of child prostitution and solicitation stemming from a 2001 encounter with a teen girl, in the fourth of four sets of sex-crime charges pending against him in state and federal courts in three states.

Kelly, 52, is currently locked up in a federal detention center in Chicago after he was indicted in Illinois and in New York on multiple sex crimes.

Chuck Laszewski, spokesman for the Hennepin County district attorney, said the likely result of the warrant is that Kelly will be ordered to appear in court in Minnesota after the federal case in Illinois is adjudicated.

It's still unclear when any of the cases pending against Kelly will go to trial or which one will go first, so it's possible, if he is convicted in the other cases, he may never appear in Minnesota. "Who knows?" said Laszewski.

The result of all this was a hearing that lasted "maybe two minutes," said Laszewski. He said Senior Hennepin County Attorney Judith Cole told Judge Jay Quam she had been in contact with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois about Kelly and was told they would not make Kelly available for the hearing.

Kelly's attorneys didn't want him to go to Hennepin County for the hearing either, Laszewski said, and none of them had filed in advance the necessary paperwork to represent him in the Minnesota case.

Also, no documents were filed seeking a continuance of the hearing, waiving Kelly’s appearance or ordering his extradition to the state, the paper reported.

Steve Greenberg, one of Kelly’s lead defense attorneys, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune he would not attend the Minnesota hearing.

Kelly has been in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago since July pending trials on federal charges in Chicago and in New York, and on state charges in Chicago's Cook County.

Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all the charges pending against him. So far, only one trial date has been discussed – April 27, 2020 – in the federal case in Chicago, but that is likely to change.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced at a news conference in Minneapolis on Aug. 5 that Kelly is charged in connection with an encounter involving a girl he met at a concert in 2001 when she asked for autograph.

He gave her the autograph and a phone number, Freeman said, and when she called, she was invited to Kelly's hotel and offered $200 to take off her clothes and dance.

Freeman said his office got a tip earlier this year from a Chicago tip line about the alleged encounter and launched an investigation.

“It is despicable that Mr. Kelly used his fame in order to prey on underage girls,” Freeman said. “While there are more numerous charges in the Illinois and federal cases, we wanted to make sure that our victim here in Minneapolis also receives a measure of justice. We fully expect that at some future date, Mr. Kelly will have to account for his actions in Hennepin County.”

According to the criminal complaint, the accuser contacted Chicago police in January (when the anti-Kelly series "Surviving R. Kelly" aired on Lifetime) to report what she says happened the day of Kelly’s concert on July 11, 2001, in Hennepin County. She was 17 at the time.

Freeman said the three-year statute of limitations for such cases in Minnesota only applied if Kelly remained in the state, which he did not.

Gloria Allred, the attorney who represents multiple Kelly accusers, said she also represents this accuser, whom she did not identify. But she sought to clarify that her client is not a prostitute despite the language of the charges against Kelly.

"I would like to emphasize that my client is not a prostitute. She is instead a child victim of Mr. Kelly," Allred said in a statement emailed to USA TODAY after Freeman's news conference last month.

"My understanding from law enforcement in that state is that the only available statute for which Mr. Kelly can be charged is the prostitution statute."

Kelly's appearance in Minneapolis was supposed to be the second court appearance on his legal diary for September: He appeared for a status hearing on the Chicago federal case on Sept. 4, and is due to appear for a status hearing in the Cook County case on Sept. 17, and for another hearing in the Chicago federal case on Sept. 18.

And on Oct. 2, he goes to Brooklyn for a hearing in the New York federal case.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: R. Kelly is a no show in court for sex-crime charges; warrant issued