Review By Meka Kema
Rhythm and Blues maestro, R. Kelly, can tell anyone who hasn’t been through the excruciating experience of going back and forth to court over child support, that it can be a pretty tough walk.
The Chicago melody maker, last time, was too stressed to appear in court for his pending sexual abuse case and so he just didn’t show up. And he paid dearly for it.
Kelly reportedly had no idea what he was reading when he was served papers in jail. So perhaps he was unclear about showing up in court on that particular day. But his absence, resulted in him losing the sexual abuse case by default.
As a result, his lawyer is fighting to “undo the defeat.”
Kelly was sued by Heather Williams in Cook County Illinois in February. She claimed Kelly sexually abused her when she was 16-years-old. This lawsuit was compounded by another case which accused Kelly of 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Williams’ attorney Jeffrey Deutschman initially attempted to settle out of court; but when Kelly’s legal team didn’t respond, he filed the lawsuit.
Williams said she has tried to serve Kelly with papers at his home in Trump Tower but security has prevented her from doing so.
But when Kelly was in child for failure to pay child support, Williams was able to get the papers to him. Kelly’s civil attorney Brian Nix said, “R. Kelly was served while incarcerated on the child support case and he was overwhelmed by the experience of being in jail. [Being overwhelmed] coupled with Mr. Kelly not being cognizant of what the motion fully meant led to him missing the hearing. I had no idea he had been served.”
There’s a hearing set for next month to determine the damages.
Kelly’s lawyer is in the process of getting the default judgement reversed so that the singer can be present to actually defend himself.