ATLANTA — A spokesman and self-described crisis manager for R&B singer R. Kelly was confronted by the parents of Joycelyn Savage in downtown Atlanta on Friday morning.
Darrell Johnson was appearing at a press conference to provide details regarding the singer's arrest by federal authorities in Chicago on Thursday evening.
According to Johnson, Kelly was walking his dog when FBI agents took him into custody without incident, based on new sex crime charges in New York. Kelly has long denied sexual abuse allegations, but he has, in recent months returned to the spotlight, due to the airing of a television docuseries which detailed the allegations of aggravated sexual abuse involving women in Illinois.
The abuse allegedly involved minors, although Kelly has pleaded not guilty to the charges and maintained his innocence. NBC News reports he faced another 11 counts of sexual assault and sex abuse in May.
When Johnson asked for questions from the assembled media, Joycelyn Savage's father, Timothy Savage, could be loudly heard yelling, "I have a question! Where is my daughter at!? Where is Joycelyn Savage? We don't want to come and hear your lies!"
Savage and his wife Jonjelyn began to yell at Johnson from the side, demanding more information on the whereabouts of their daughter.
Joycelyn Savage is one of several women who have allegedly been held as part of a so-called sex cult headed by Kelly.
The family says they have demanded to see their daughter in person for years. However, Joycelyn Savage has said on multiple occasions that she is not being held against her will.
An attorney for the Savage family, Gerald Griggs, told reporters information provided by the family helped to secure the massive federal indictment which was just released, accusing Kelly of kidnapping girls and transporting them across state lines for sex.
The indictment alleges that R. Kelly made the girls call him Daddy and ask permission to eat, drink and use the bathroom. Johnson insisted that was just not true.
"These are not kids, these are not girls, these are grown women," Johnson said.
He said that Kelly is innocent of all of the charges against him and that they are getting harder to keep track of.
Griggs released a statement on Friday regarding the new charges, which said, "We are satisfied that Federal Authorities believed the families and survivors that were victims of Robert Kelly. We will be traveling to Chicago soon to reunite with Joycelyn," the attorney's statement said. "We thank the jurors and prosecutors that returned the indictment against R Kelly. We are hopeful that justice will be served in this case."
Kelly is expected to have a bond hearing in the next few days, but federal prosecutors are asking a judge to hold him in jail until after the trial.
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