R Kelly is facing additional accusations in his sex trafficking case, including one that he had sexual contact with an underage boy that he met in a McDonald’s.
In a court filing on Friday, federal prosecutors in the US revealed the latest raft of allegations (but not charges) against the rapper in his ongoing case.
Kelly is charged with running what prosecutors have said is a criminal enterprise of bodyguards, managers and others who allegedly helped him find women and girls to take part in sex and pornography, while the singer exercised control over them.
The formal charges involve six different women and girls, who, for legal reasons, cannot be named.
Prosecutors now want a jury, which will be selected on 9 August in New York, to hear from more than a dozen other people whom the government says were sexually or physically abused, threatened or mistreated by Kelly.
R Kelly denies all allegations made against him.
Among the new claims, Kelly allegedly met a 17-year-old boy in a McDonald’s restaurant in December 2006 before inviting him to his studio in Chicago.
The latest court filing alleges that Kelly propositioned and had sexual contact with the boy after asking him what he would do to make it in the industry, despite his age.
Prosecutors add that ahead of the singer’s 2008 child pornography trial, the same teenager told Kelly he had access to one of the jury members, with the R&B star asking the then-young man to vouch for him – but the filing does not reveal whether the youth did so.
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Kelly was subsequently acquitted in that case.
The same teenager then introduced Kelly to another 16 or 17-year-old boy with whom the singer began a relationship several years later, the filing added.
Prosecutors also allege that he filmed the two teenagers in sexual encounters with other people, including some of the rapper’s girlfriends.
Lawyers believe that by writing up the accounts of the boys, it would show the charges “were not isolated events and were part of a larger pattern”.