Lawyer Michael Avenatti, who represents a former R. Kelly associate turned whistleblower against the singer, says his firm has discovered yet another tape of Kelly having sex with an underaged girl. This past Saturday, the lawyer tweeted that he had had “become aware of the existence of a third tape, that allegedly shows further acts of sexual abuse of an underage girl by R Kelly.”
Avenatti further claims that his firm has taken steps to secure the tape and turn it over to authorities, who have recently begun to investigate the singer in the wake of the Lifetime documentary miniseries Surviving R. Kelly. The series, which finally put faces and names to the women and families accusing the singer of decades of sexual abuse of multiple women, including some teen girls, seemingly galvanized the movements against him like #MuteRKelly. Avenatti turned over a second sex tape allegedly depicting Kelly’s abuses on an underaged girl last week, the first to surface since the singer was acquitted in 2008 on child porn charges for a similar tape in which he allegedly urinated on a teenaged girl.
Now, Avenatti’s tweets cast further doubt on that outcome, as he claims that he and his firm “have discovered substantial evidence that he and certain enablers engaged in systematic witness intimidation, evidence tampering, physical threats, and payments to witnesses.” In other words, he says, “They rigged the trial.”
CNN confirmed that the second tape did appear to be legitimate. R. Kelly denies all the claims against him.
