R. Kelly loses bid to leave jail amid COVID-19 pandemic

American singer-songwriter R. Kelly will have to stay trapped in the lockup while he awaits trials on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and child pornography, a judge ruled Tuesday (local time).

According to Page Six, the 53-year-old R & B singer filed requests with federal judges in the Windy City and Brooklyn to spring him from Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center, arguing that both his age and his recent hernia surgery put him at high risk for catching COVID-19.

But, in a ruling issued on Tuesday, the Brooklyn Federal judge disagreed to Kelly's claims and noted that there have been no reported cases of coronavirus among Kelly's fellow inmates in Chicago.

Donnelly wrote, "While I am sympathetic to the defendant's understandable anxiety about COVID-19, he has not established compelling reasons warranting his release."

The 'I Believe I Can Fly' crooner, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, would have needed approval from both Donnelly and Chicago federal judge Harry Leinenweber to grant his request to live with girlfriend Joycelyn Savage in her Windy City loft while awaiting trial.

In the motion for bail Kelly by Kelly in Chicago, Leinenweber has not issued a ruling.

Kelly's Chicago trial on child abuse had been set for June, but Donnelly said it will likely be postponed due to the virus outbreak.