R. Kelly moved back to Chicago lockup ahead of next federal trial

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Disgraced R&B star R. Kelly is back in a federal lockup in Chicago, ahead of his second federal trial last month, after he was sentenced last month to 30 years in prison in a federal sex trafficking case out of New York.

Kelly, 55, had spent more than a year in the federal jail in Brooklyn, where he was convicted on racketeering and sex trafficking charges last September. As of Tuesday, he was being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago, according to federal prison records.

He is scheduled to go on trial starting Aug. 15 at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, on child pornography and obstruction of justice charges.

The federal charges against Kelly in Chicago accuse him of videotaping himself having sex with underage girls, and paying hush money and intimidating witnesses to cover up his crimes and rig his 2008 child pornography case in Cook County.

Kelly also faces multiple sexual assault and sexual abuse charges in Cook County. The first of those trials has been delayed multiple times due to the pandemic, and has yet to be scheduled.

After he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the New York racketeering case, Kelly was placed on suicide watch while locked up in Brooklyn, prompting a complaint by his defense attorneys who called the move punitive. But prison officials lifted that suicide watch days later, citing a new "clinical assessment."