Atlanta attorney Gerald Griggs said the latest video allegedly showing entertainer R. Kelly having sex with a teenager is more than enough to file criminal charges.
“My question is, what’s taking so long?” Griggs told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Thursday.
The Fulton County district attorney’s office declined to comment Thursday on whether it is investigating Kelly.
Los Angeles-based attorney Michael Avenatti shared the tape with both Illinois prosecutors and CNN, Griggs said. The 43-minute video shows a naked man performing multiple sex acts with a girl, who is repeatedly heard calling the man in the video “daddy,” CNN reported.
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Griggs said he hasn’t seen the video. But several of Kelly’s victims are his clients, and they are cooperating with investigators in Chicago.
“I haven’t seen it because I don’t want to watch child porn,” he said.
Kelly has repeatedly denied the allegations against him, The Associated Press reported.
But the video is just the latest evidence against the singer and songwriter, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.
Kelly previously had a home in Johns Creek, where he allegedly held women against their will.
“We’ve got years of witnesses, from his brothers, his ex-wife, his music teacher, his daughter and the women in the house, plus former employees,” Griggs said. “It’s time for accountability and justice for these victims.”
In a July 2017 BuzzFeed article, three sets of parents of women allegedly living with Kelly in his Chicago and Johns Creek homes called the environment "an abusive cult." Yet at that time, Johns Creek police told the AJC that despite those allegations, no further investigation of Kelly was being conducted.
The BBC, or British Broadcasting Corp., previously aired two documentaries about Kelly’s alleged sexual abuse. But it was a six-part series by Lifetime, called “Surviving R. Kelly,” which aired in January, that caught the attention of the entertainment world.
Griggs said allegations against Kelly were made in Fulton County in 2017. But so far, the singer has not been charged.
“From what we saw in the documentary and what I’m told is seen in this tape, I don’t know what more you need to do to take it to a grand jury,” Griggs said.
It took victims coming forward to finally get the right people to listen, Griggs said.
“We’re in a new era where women’s voices have to be heard, especially African-American women. Hopefully this will be enough.”
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