Updated at 12:45 p.m. ET
Federal prosecutors in New York and Chicago unsealed sweeping charges against R&B singer R. Kelly on Friday, accusing him of abusing women and girls for nearly two decades, including kidnapping, forced labor and sending child pornography across state lines.
The bombshell charges, the first federal criminal charges Kelly has faced, come a day after he was arrested while walking his dog outside his home in Chicago’s Trump Tower. He faces a total of 18 federal counts.
Prosecutors have requested that Kelly be held in detention while he awaits trial, saying he is a danger to the community and a significant flight risk.
“The defendant is charged as the leader of a racketeering enterprise engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity spanning two decades involving the sexual exploitation of children, coercing and transporting women and girls to engage in illegal sexual activity, kidnapping and forced labor,” wrote Richard Donoghue, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.