A Chicago police spokesman said that Kelly was fingerprinted, photographed, and processed and was set to remain in police custody overnight.
On Saturday morning, Kelly was due to take a prisoner transport to court where custody would be transferred to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told reporters earlier in the day that Kelly was charged with a combined 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
The alleged misconduct took place between 1998 and 2010, she said. Of the four alleged victims, three were underage at the time.
Kelly didn’t issue a statement but his attorney, Steve Greenberg, told reporters that all four women are lying.
Each count against Kelly could result in as many as 7 years in prison or as little as probation if he is convicted.
Greenberg said Kelly would be released on bond after his scheduled appearance on Feb. 23. “He’s going to go to bond court, and he’s gonna get out,” he said.
“They’re making him a sacrificial lamb for their own sake and there’s no merit to any of this.”
One of the alleged victims identified herself publicly at a press conference on Thursday in New York City. Latresa Scaff and Rochelle Washington said that Kelly picked them out of a crowd at a Baltimore party in the mid-1990s. Scaff said she was 16 and Washington was 15 when they attended a concert featuring Kelly and he spotted them at a party after the show.
Kelly had a member of his entourage give them drugs and alcohol and told them to meet him at his hotel suite. When the girls arrived, Kelly was already partially naked, Scaff said. Washington went into the bathroom after the singer allegedly asked the girls to have sex with him.
“When I first met R. Kelly that night, I was very happy and excited because I was young and starstruck,” Scaff said. “However now that I am an adult, I feel hurt by what he did to me when I was only 16 years old and under the influence of alcohol and marijuana which had been provided to me at his after-party.”