R. Kelly is still battling legal issues in Chicago and most recently he was hit with a default judgment in Cook County after failing to respond to one of his lawsuits.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Kelly was served with a civil lawsuit stemming from a sex abuse allegation in early March while he was being held in the Cook County Jail over his failure to pay more than $160,000 in child support to his ex-wife.
On April 23, a Cook County judge entered a default judgment against the singer after he and his lawyer didn?t respond to the summonses. Kelly’s attorneys are now claiming the error occurred because the superstar can’t read.
Details below…
Lawyers for R. Kelly say he did not appear in court for hearings the civil abuse lawsuit because he can?t read, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The publication reports that a judge ruled the singer in default during an April 23 hearing after he and his lawyer failed to respond to the lawsuit.
The ruling means that Kelly nor his attorneys appeared at the proceedings.
?Robert Sylvester Kelly has failed and refused to file an appearance or answer to the Complaint even though (he is) required to do so,? attorneys for the plaintiff wrote in their motion for default judgment in April.
Had Kelly and/or his attorney appeared at the April 23 hearing or another hearing April 24, Cook County Judge Moira S. Johnson could have vacated her default ruling. ?However they were all no shows to the hearings.
Kelly?s attorneys, Raed Shalabi and Zaid Abdallah, filed a response on April 26, explaining that it was Kelly’s illiteracy that was to blame, stating:
The defendant does not recall being served.
The Defendant suffers from a learning disability that adversely affects his ability to read, in essence he cannot.
The plaintiff, one of four victims listed in a criminal complaint against Kelly, filed a civil lawsuit against the singer in February.
According to the suit, the woman alleged she met Kelly while walking down the street in Chicago on May 26, 1998. Kelly pulled his car over when he saw her and spoke to her.
A Kelly associate met with the plaintiff and her family at a restaurant later that day and gave the plaintiff Kelly?s number so the singer could invite the woman to his studio and be in a music video, the complaint says.
?Commencing in or about June 1998 and thereafter until she was of the age of majority, defendant, Robert Sylvester Kelly, sexually abused plaintiff,? the suit says.
?Specifically, defendant, Robert Sylvester Kelly, had sexual intercourse with the minor plaintiff. The defendant also engaged in oral sex with the minor plaintiff. During these repeated incidents, defendant represented to the minor plaintiff that this behavior was appropriate.?
The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in damages.
For the record, Darrell Johnson, Kelly?s publicist, told the Sun-Times on April 24 that the singer and his camp were well aware of the litigation, but it was not a priority of theirs.
?We don?t care about the lawsuit,? Johnson said then. ?The lawsuit means nothing to us.?
Jeffrey Deutschman, the woman?s attorney, said that he and his client are ?happy to have our day in court if that?s what [Kelly] wants.?
?We don?t envision the jury will find anything but that the defendant abused my client when she was a minor,? he added.
Well hell… SOMEBODY read the paperwork, even if it wasn’t Kellz! The media knew about the lawsuit, but his attorneys didn’t? Interesting.