Federal prosecutors announced charges Wednesday against three men accused of threatening and intimidating women who have accused R&B singer R. Kelly of abuse, including one man suspected of setting fire to a vehicle in Florida.
A longtime friend of the indicted singer offered to pay a victim $500,000 to keep her from cooperating in Kelly's prosecution, authorities said, while a manager and adviser of Kelly threatened to release sexually explicit photographs of a woman who sued Kelly.
The Grammy-award winning musician has denied ever abusing anyone and has pleaded not guilty to dozens of state and federal sexual misconduct charges in Illinois, Minnesota, and New York.
The charges range from sexual assault to heading a racketeering scheme aimed at supplying Kelly with girls. Kelly also is accused of having unprotected sex with a girl in 2015 without disclosing he had herpes.
Prosecutors described a third man accused of intimidating witnesses as being related to a former Kelly publicist. They said Michael Williams, 37, of Valdosta, Georgia, traveled to Florida in June and set fire to an SUV parked outside a residence where one of Kelly's victims was staying.
Williams also conducted Internet searches for "the detonation properties of fertilizer and diesel fuel, witness intimidation and witness tampering and countries that do not have extradition with the United States," authorities said in a news release.
A message was sent to Williams' attorney seeking comment.
Mask guidance starting to make a comeback, stories of survival and heartbreak in Miami, airlines stake bets on the future and the TikTok trend that has resurrected one brand from the dead.
It's Day 6 of a painstaking effort to find survivors after after the collapse of a beachfront Florida condominium.
Hannah Everhart, a Maryland tattoo artist, is among those professionals rocked by the pandemic, but now the industry is seeing incredibly high demand. She has seen so much interest that she's booked until October.
Some minor relief coming to the Pacific Northwest, new info on the Miami condo collapse and that building's state of disrepair, Facebook gets a big win in court, stunners at Wimbledon and the Euro and being a mom vs. being an Olympian. Can you be both?
Christina Radigan, chief marketing officer of the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, joined Cheddar News' Michelle Castillo to talk about its new study on consumer travel trends and the push to get people to do things outdoors.
Electronic cigarette giant Juul Labs Inc. will pay $40 million to North Carolina and take more action to prevent underage use and sales.
Jill's back with Carlo to bring you up to speed on the latest from the weekend as the search for survivors of that Miami condo collapse enters its 5th day. Records fall left and right in the Pacific Northwest amid an historic and unrelenting heat wave. And the search for the woman who ruined the Tour de France.
Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, whose dying gasps under Chauvin’s knee led to the biggest outcry against racial injustice in the U.S. in generations.
Danish toymaker Lego has presented its first building bricks made from recycled drinks bottles — an experimental project that if successful could eventually go into production.
Officials say there are still 159 people unaccounted for after the partial collapse of a beachside building in Florida.
