A former lawyer for embattled pop star R. Kelly claims the singer was “guilty as hell” over his 2002 arrest on child pornography charges.
Long-known in the Chicago area as a legal force to be reckoned with, 77-year-old attorney Ed Genson made the comments in the apparent form of a deathbed-like confession.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Genson was recently diagnosed with terminal bile duct cancer and given only 90 days to live. The one-time legal powerhouse offered various controversial insights into his former client during a wide-ranging interview released on Thursday.
“I can say whatever I want, but we’ve got to do it fast,” Genson said. “It would be nice to get it down so somebody knows besides me.”
Per that interview:
He was guilty as hell! I don’t think he’s done anything inappropriate for years. I’ll tell you a secret: I had him go to a doctor to get shots, libido-killing shots. That’s why he didn’t get arrested for anything else.
Genson repeatedly insisted that he didn’t enable the singer’s allegedly unlawful proclivities.
“I didn’t facilitate him,” the terminally ill attorney said. “He had already done what he’d done. I did facilitate him in the sense I kept him out of trouble for 10 years. I was vetting his records. I listened to them, which ones would make a judge mad.”
As for the alleged truth of Kelly’s alleged guilt? Genson says he realized it later on during the course of his representation–via one of Kelly’s most popular and enduring songs: Ignition.
I was riding in the car, listening to a song and said, “Are you crazy? This is all I need.” He re-wrote it. It’s a song related to a guy driving around in a car with his girlfriend. It was originally a high school instructor in a class teaching people how to drive a car. I changed the words.
Gerson also said that Kelly immediately forfeited his bond money after the initial arrest in 2002.
“When I represented Kelly in Florida, they set the bond at a $1 million,” he told the Sun-Times. “We paid the bondsman $100,000. He was out on bond on the Florida case for three days and they made $100,000. Because he had to fly back to Chicago because they were going to arrest him here.”
Kelly was tried on 14 separate counts of child pornography and acquitted in 2008 after jurors were unable to identify the age of the girl in an infamous watersports tape that’s long been the subject of heated discussion and pop cultural ridicule.
Genson also says that Kelly is attempting to engage in jury tampering through his current media tour.
“He is [trying to jury tamper],” Genson told reporter Neil Steinberg. “I’m trying to figure out why he did it. I don’t know whether his lawyer is an idiot. He might be.”
Kelly’s current attorney is Steven A. Greenberg. He says his client is in no way attempting to influence the potential juror pool.
“R. Kelly is a grown man who can respond to these allegations as he sees fit,” Greenberg told the outlet. “He didn’t talk about the charges, he didn’t talk about cases, he generalized allegations that he is some kind of monster running a cult. This case is so far off in the future; who knows when a trial is going to be? I don’t think anyone is trying to tamper or influence the jury.”
Kelly was recently charged with ten counts of aggravated sexual abuse in Illinois. He faces up to 70 years in prison.
[image via screengrab/CBS]
