Last summer, three people associated with R & B crooner Robert Sylvester Kelly, also known as R. Kelly, were arrested for allegedly attempting to intimidate and threaten women who accused the “I Can Fly” singer of sexual abuse and harassment. Earlier this week, one of the three people, Michael Williams, pled guilty to a charge of arson.
According to New York Post’s Page Six
, Williams set fire to an SUV, which was rented by a relative, that was parked outside the home of an alleged victim of R. Kelly. Williams, who is reportedly a relative of Kelly’s former publicist, will be sentenced later this year on Oct. 5 and faces the possibility of going to prison for up to 71 months. With Williams’ plea deal, Brooklyn federal court prosecutors have agreed to drop the witness tampering charge against him.“The plea agreement is fair in that the witness tampering charge as it relates to R. Kelly will be dismissed at sentencing,” said Williams’ defense lawyer Todd Spodek.
Click Orlando reported that investigators identified Williams as a potential suspect after they pulled up records from Google that allegedly showed he looked up the victim’s home address shortly before the arson.
“I drove from my house to Kissimmee, Florida, and deliberately set a car on fire in someone’s driveway,” Williams stated during a court hearing this past Monday in Brooklyn, New York, after pleading guilty to arson.
Williams was charged last year along with Donnell Russell and Richard Arline Jr., who are each accused of trying to intimidate Kelly’s alleged victims through bribery. Arline pled guilty earlier this year in February.
Kelly is awaiting trial in Brooklyn federal court on several criminal counts of sex trafficking, racketeering, coercion, and other rapes in connection with the abuse of six women and girls.