R. Kelly given overdose by prison staff, lawyers say

Editor’s Note: This story contains discussions of rape or sexual assault that may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can find help and discreet resources on the National Sexual Assault Hotline website or by calling 1-800-656-4673.

(NewsNation) — Lawyers for R. Kelly say the singer overdosed last week on medication given to him by prison staff, a claim that follows a previous allegation that the singer’s life was in danger.

In a June 17 filing, lawyers say that after the R&B singer was put in solitary confinement and given an “overdose quantity” of sleep and anxiety medication, which led to his being hospitalized.

Kelly’s team says he was put in solitary confinement after an emergency motion was filed calling for him to be moved to home detention.

Lawyers say Kelly woke up on Jun. 13 feeling dizzy, with black spots in his vision and unable to get up without falling. The filing says he crawled to the door of his cell before fainting.

Kelly was then taken to the hospital by ambulance and hospitalized for two days.

The filing also says Kelly was removed from the Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, where he had been treated against medical advice.

“Then, they took him out of a hospital at gunpoint and denied him surgery on blood clots in his lungs that the hospital said needed immediate intervention,” the filing said.

Kelly, 58, is serving a 30-year sentence at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, for racketeering and sex trafficking. He faced accusations from multiple women who say he sexually abused them, some of them when they were underage.

The previous motion for Kelly to be removed from prison centered around allegations that Board of Prisons employees were working with an inmate in an attempt to kill the singer.