R. Kelly has been transferred from a prison in Chicago to a federal prison in North Carolina to serve his sentence on child pornography, racketeering, and sex trafficking conviction, AP reports.
Kelly was moved to the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina on April 19, and its medical facility currently houses “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, CNN notes. It was also where Bernie Madoff, the deceased mastermind of a notorious Ponzi scheme, was detained.
Kelly is serving concurrent terms for different cases: a 20-year prison sentence for three counts of production of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity and a 30-year sentence on racketeering and sex trafficking charges for forming a “network of people at his disposal to target girls, boys and young women for his own sexual gratification.”
The transfer comes after his attorneys moved to appeal his federal racketeering conviction last week.
Kelly has repeatedly asserted his innocence, famously decrying the allegations in an emotionally charged interview with Gayle King in 2019.
“What I was really thinking to myself was: I’m not done with this interview, so I’m going to let him have his moment,” King explained later. “If I stood up even to comfort him, that could have been his invitation to say ‘This is over.’ So I didn’t interrupt his anger and let him have that.”