A US judge has decided that Universal Music Group must provide sexual assault victims of singer R. Kelly access to his royalties, which amount more than $500,000.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn, New York, signed an order instructing Universal Music Group to give over the funds to settle the singer’s outstanding restitution and fines.
Kelly had already been ordered by Donnelly to turn over about $28,000 in his jail prisoner account and put it to his overdue penalties.
According to Bloomberg on Wednesday, the court punished Kelly in 2022 when she sentenced the R&B singer to 30 years in jail for racketeering and sexual exploitation of children.
Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted in a separate federal child pornography case in Chicago; the majority of those years will run concurrently with her Brooklyn term.
Kelly is presently imprisoned at a federal facility in Butner, North Carolina. It is unclear whether he is represented by a lawyer.
Kelly’s attorneys were outraged last year when federal prosecutors took the “unprecedented” step of removing the singer’s jail prisoner account, arguing they couldn’t prove Kelly’s failure to make full payments to his victims in the form of fines and restitution.
The judge later dismissed their claim that prosecutors acted hastily in freezing all but $500 from Kelly’s jail inmate account.