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Artist News Legal
R Kelly loses civil abuse case by default after failing to appear in court
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 25 April 2019
R Kelly has lost a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing an underage girl. The ruling against the musician was made by default after he failed to appear in court to defend himself.
The woman who filed the civil litigation is one of the four whose accusations form the basis of the criminal charges that Kelly is also facing, for which he is yet to stand trial. She filed her lawsuit in February, claiming that she had a number of sexual encounters with the musician, the first in 1998 when she was sixteen years old.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Kelly was served a court summons in relation to the action but never responded. To that end, earlier this week, the judge overseeing the case granted a request by the woman’s attorney to rule in her favour.
Asked why Kelly had failed to defend himself, his publicist Darrell Johnson told the Chicago Sun-Times: “We don’t care about the lawsuit. The lawsuit means nothing to us”.
A hearing has now been set for next month to determine what damages Kelly should pay the woman in the case. Whatever the figure, it will add to mounting debts for the star, who was recently revealed to have just $625 to his name. He is currently facing further jail time as he fails to keep up to date with child support payments.
Aside from his financial troubles, Kelly is also facing those criminal charges, of course. Accused of sexual abusing four women, three of whom were underage at the time of the alleged incidents, if convicted he faces up to 70 years in prison.
