​R. Kelly Allegedly Bought a Fake ID the Day Before He Married a 15-Year-Old Aaliyah

BY Sarah MurphyPublished Dec 6, 2019

Federal prosecutors have accused R. Kelly of paying a bribe to obtain a fake identification document the day before he married a then 15-year-old Aaliyah.
 
A revised indictment filed yesterday (December 5) in New York claims that Kelly paid a bribe in exchange for a fake I.D. on August 30, 1994, for a woman simply listed as "Jane Doe."
 
A day later, he married Aaliyah, who was 15 at the time. The Illinois marriage licence listed her as 18. Kelly was 27. The marriage was later annulled because of Aaliyah's age.
 
The U.S. attorney's office did not comment on whom the I.D. was for, though someone close to the investigation confirmed to the Associated Press that it was for Aaliyah.
 
Kelly's attorneys claim that he was unaware of Aaliyah's age when they married.
 
This marks the first time that Kelly's marriage to Aaliyah has been brought up in relation to the mounting criminal cases against him.
 
Kelly and Aaliyah worked together, with the former producing the latter's debut 1994 album Age Ain't Nothing But a Number.

​Aaliyah died in a plane crash in 2001 at the age of 22.
 
In addition to a potential bribery charge, New York prosecutors have already charged Kelly with racketeering, kidnapping, forced labour and sexual exploitation.
 
He was first arrested in February in Illinois on 10 counts of sexual abuse. Cook County prosecutors have since charged him with 11 additional sex-related crimes. Chicago federal court charged him with child pornography and obstruction of justice in July, around the same time he was indicted in New York.
 
He is scheduled to stand trial in Chicago in April, followed by trial in Brooklyn.

Kelly has also been charged with sex-related crimes by prosecutors in Minneapolis

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