R. Kelly is seemingly switching up his legal team, as he has now brought on one of the most successful criminal defense lawyers in America, Tom Mesereau.
Mesereau previously worked on Michael Jackson’s notorious child molestation case in 2005, and was able to get him acquitted. In that same year, he got actor Robert Blake acquitted of murdering his wife.
According to sources from TMZ, Mesereau is in Chicago right now meeting with Kelly, who is being charged with multiple crimes in four different jurisdictions, which include Illinois State, Illinois Federal, New York Federal and Minnesota State. Mesereau has reportedly not officially signed on, but is expected to. Should he chose to join Kelly’s legal team, he will be the lead attorney and possibly the only attorney representing Kelly.
The Minnesota charges are the most recent, with the victim coming forward just three days after Cook County State Attorney, Kim Foxx, held a news conference encouraging any potential victims of Kelly to come forward, according to TMZ. The victim claims she had an inappropriate interaction with Kelly in a hotel room before one of his concerts, when she was younger than 18-years-old. If convicted for this charge, Kelly faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
However, it is unclear how Kelly intends to pay the legal bills for Mesereau, given he has struggled to pay child support in the past and was even jailed for some time before he reportedly scraped the $161,633 together with the help of a “benefactor”.
While Kelly awaits Mesereau’s decision, he is currently sitting in jail without bail. He is awaiting trial on several dozen sex abuse charges.
