A story in the Chicago Sun-Times quotes the judge in the R. Kelly case confirming what everyone surmised—that he’s put a gag order on the lawyers and closed hearings to the public to avoid tainting the jury pool for the trial, which at this point is still scheduled to get underway, finally, on May 9, which is next Friday.

The ST and the Chicago Tribune have asked the judge to open the hearings and release transcripts of the ones held under wraps. He’s scheduled a hearing on the issue May 8, which may be a canny way potentially to render the issue moot; he can hear arguments and then spend a couple of weeks considering the issue as jury selection proceeds. The ST quoted Judge Vincent Gaughn thusly:

“I can’t disclose the reasons without giving away the whole thing,” Gaughan said. “It actually is because of the proximity of jury selection, which is in about two weeks, and the fact that it might deprive Mr. Kelly of a fair trial.”

One court filing revealed that the matters under discussion include the long and seamy trail of accusations that have dogged Kelly since 2000, probably to decide how much of it prosecutors can introduce as evidence.
Obligatory historical boilerplate:

Kelly’s case has already been a six-year-plus circus. He’s accused of filming himself having sex with a girl who police said was 13 or 14 at the time. (The tape also shows him urinating in the girl’s mouth. According to news reports, the tape also has footage of Kelly having sex with a different young girl, but she has never been identified.)

Kelly was arrested again in 2003 after Florida police found digital photos of him having sex with a different young girl, but those charges were eventually thrown out. Kelly also married a 15-year-old girl in 1994; the marriage was annulled after word got out. Local Chicago papers have published allegations from more than a half-dozen other girls who said Kelly seduced them.

As Hitsville has written in the past, many news outlets of late, falling over themselves to write about Kelly’s tours or his zany video cycle, “Trapped in the Closet,”  have forgotten to mention the totally barfy history of accusations that portray him as a serial sex predator. They are hereby allowed to use without restriction the previous two paragraphs in their writing about Kelly.

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Previously in Hitsville:

Tribune, Sun-Times protest closed hearings in R. Kelly case

Secret hearings in the R. Kelly case

The Godfather Who Shagged Me: The complete R. Kelly SexFacts™
Everything you ever wanted to know about the R. Kelly case

R. Kelly’s Publicist: He slept with my daughter!