R Kelly surrenders following sexual abuse charges

New York:  R&B singer turned himself in to Chicago Police after he was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sex abuse.

The rapper reported to a police precinct in the city Friday night and is expected to appear in court on Saturday, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. "Singer/songwriter Robert Kelly (R Kelly) is under arrest and in #ChicagoPolice custody," the spokesman tweeted. According to PageSix, photos of the pop star, dressed in a blue bubble jacket, being led in handcuffs by the cops are doing the rounds on social media. Kelly is accused of sexually assaulting four people, including three underage girls, between 1998 and 2010, court documents allege. 

He faces a maximum of 70 years in prison if convicted. Kelly's lawyer Steve Greenberg dismissed the allegations, saying all the woman are "lying". Greenberg has said that the singer, who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers for decades, never knowingly had sex with an underage girl. Two women claim the musician's entourage supplied them with weed and alcohol and then raped one of them. Latresa Scaff and Rochelle Washington said Thursday that they met Kelly when they were teenagers in 1996 at the afterparty for his concert with LL Cool J in Baltimore. 

"When I first met R. Kelly that night, I was very happy and excited because I was young and starstruck," Scaff said at a press conference in New York. "However, now that I am an adult, I feel hurt by what he did to me when I was only 16 years old and under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, which had been provided to me at his afterparty," she added. Kelly, whose full name is Robert Kelly, singled the teens out at the afterparty and had a member of his crew feed them marijuana and alcohol, Scaff said. He then allegedly told them to meet him at his hotel suite. 

Scaff and Washington were in the hotel room when the R&B star allegedly exposed himself and asked for a threesome, promising them he would feature them in one of his videos. Washington said, "No, I do not do that," and escaped to the bathroom, Scaff said. With Washington in the bathroom, Kelly allegedly asked for oral sex from Scaff and then had sex with her even though she was drunk and high and "did not have the capacity to consent," she said. "It took a heavy toll on me. 

So I feel like I need to be here today to tell what happened to me, because of all of the other victims that were affected by it as well," Scaff said. The accusations come six weeks after the Lifetime documentary series "Surviving R Kelly" trained the lens at past sexual misconduct accusations against the 52-year-old singer.