A choose Friday denied R. Kelly‘s bid to dismiss two counts of his Brooklyn federal indictment — together with one which stems from allegations the R&B singer gave a lady herpes.
The indictment alleges that Kelly, 53, transported certainly one of his victims throughout state strains to have interaction in sexual exercise in violation of a 1943 New York Public Well being Legislation, which makes it a misdemeanor for an individual contaminated with a venereal illness to have intercourse with one other particular person.
The protection argued that the statute is overly broad and unconstitutional for banning individuals with infectious venereal illnesses from partaking in consensual intercourse and criminalizing non-public sexual acts.
Decide Ann Donnelly rejected the protection’s place, ruling that “public well being is a reliable state curiosity” and that the legislation rightfully penalizes those that have unprotected intercourse realizing they’ve sexually transmitted illnesses with out informing their companions.
The protection additionally unsuccessfully lobbied the choose to dismiss a racketeering rely, arguing that prosecutors hadn’t confirmed the alleged important components of the crime.
The “I Consider I Can Fly” crooner — whose given title is Robert Kelly — is charged with greater than a dozen prison counts, together with sex-trafficking, racketeering and coercion associated to 6 girls and women.
In a separate Chicago indictment, Kelly is charged with producing youngster pornography and destroying proof.
The singer is presently locked up within the Windy Metropolis’s Metropolitan Correctional Heart after shedding three requests for launch amid the coronavirus outbreak sweeping via prisons.
“We’re not getting the outcomes we imagine that legislation dictates and mandates,” stated a member of Kelly’s protection crew, Doug Anton, in response to the choose’s determination. “It leaves open the opportunity of attraction.”