On Thursday, R Kelly pleaded not guilty to the 11 additional charges of sexual assault. These charges are related to abuse of Jerondha Pace, who appeared in the Surviving R Kelly docuseries.
The 11 charges relating to Pace, who was a minor at the time, include four counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, two counts of criminal sexual assault, and five counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, according to court documents.
According to BuzzFeed News, Kelly was arrested in February with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse involving four women — three of whom were underage during the alleged acts. Also reported by BuzzfFed, R Kelly’s lawyer, Steve Greenberg, said that the new charges “are not really new — they are the same conduct, just charged differently, same alleged victim, same time frame, same facts.”
The plot thickens in the ever-expanding R Kelly story, with the charges piling up against the singer, and yet still a plea of not guilty. I’m not saying that this might be evidence that there is a giant conspiracy and R Kelly is innocent, just that there’s a lot to this story that the media, and thus the public, doesn’t know.