Back in February, a mysterious person posted $100,000 for R. Kelly’s bail, which was enough of the full $1 million for him to get out of jail at the time. That person was eventually identified as Valencia Love, and now she wants her money back. Love’s lawyer filed a motion in Cook County Circuit Court last week to try to recover it, but the presiding judge said not today, according to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times. (It’s possible the money could be returned to her when the court proceedings are finished, but that’s potentially years away.) The thing is, though, she’s not turning her back on the singer accused of many rapes and sexual assaults. “At no point have I ever supported a pedophile,” Love told the paper. “He has not been convicted yet. Why is it so bad that I did a favor for a friend?” Kelly, she says, actually paid her back months ago, and the bail money was just a short-term loan while he didn’t have access to his cash. Apparently, she’s trying to get it now so she can reinvest it in his defense “to cover his legal costs and other expenses.”
Kelly was able to leave jail after Love bailed him out, but he went back into custody in July after a federal indictment containing charges involving child pornography and enticing minors was unsealed. With the disgraced entertainer back behind bars, Love thought the money could come back to her. “Why is it such a big deal? He’s already locked up,” she told the Sun-Times. “Why can’t the bail money be returned?” According to her own lawyer, Love had also put up $50,000 to cover Kelly’s unpaid child support, but Love denies that she did so.
Kelly is currently being held in a federal detention center in Chicago. Across indictments in Cook County and New York (and perhaps also in Minnesota) as well as federal charges, he has been charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, racketeering, criminal sexual assault by force, enticing a minor, producing child pornography, aggravated criminal sexual abuse against a victim between the ages of 13 and 16, and obstruction of justice.
