R. Kelly is under criminal investigation in Georgia, 'direct result' of #SurvivingRKelly Lifetime docu-series

Today is R. Kelly’s birthday. Today, news is breaking that the singer is under investigation in Georgia.

R. Kelly has been accused of abuse, predatory behavior, and pedophilia for decades. A new investigation has launched into charges he committed crimes against girls in Fulton County. Dream Hampton, executive producer of ‘Surviving R. Kelly,’ said it best.

From TMZ, this afternoon:

R. Kelly is being criminally investigated in Georgia — and it’s all because of Lifetime’s docuseries … TMZ has learned.

Sources connected to the case tell us the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has opened an investigation into allegations made against the singer in “Surviving R. Kelly.” We’re told the probe was launched over the past few days as a direct result of what ‘Surviving’ depicted.

We’re told investigators have been reaching out to several survivors featured in the TV project. We have confirmed investigators reached out to Asante McGee, one of the women who allegedly escaped R. Kelly’s home.

The attorney for Joycelyn Savage’s family was contacted by Chief Investigator Cynthia Nwokocha and has been fully cooperating.

Why hasn’t R. Kelly faced criminal charges or an investigation of this kind before?

Perhaps because he already got off once.

From the New York Times, May 2018:

Since the first major newspaper investigation by The Chicago Sun-Times into allegations of abuse by the singer in 2000, Mr. Kelly has consistently denied that he has been violent and sexually coercive with women and young teenagers even as he has settled lawsuits, dating to the mid-1990s, with accusers. In 2008 he was acquitted of child pornography charges despite videotape evidence that, prosecutors contended, showed him urinating on and having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

(…)

Despite the rash of accusations, Mr. Kelly is not known to be facing any investigations for sexual abuse. Susan E. Loggans, a lawyer who has negotiated at least three settlements with women who said they were victimized by the singer, said that criminal prosecution continued to seem unlikely.

“I feel that since he was already tried, already acquitted,” she said, referring to the 2008 case, “that state’s attorneys are reluctant to do it. It costs millions of dollars, would drag on for a long period of time and there is a general skepticism about whether it would be successful.”

Jurors in Mr. Kelly’s previous child pornography case, which took more than six years to go to trial, said they could not ultimately determine that the 27-minute sex video featured the singer and an underage girl (who did not testify) as the prosectors argued.

“If he got acquitted next time, nobody would ever have a chance,” Ms. Loggans said. “Prosecution is very hesitant to do that over again.”