Source: Cook County Department of Corrections / Cook County Department of Corrections

R. Kelly To Be Arraigned In Racketeering Case In Brooklyn This Week

R. Kelly’s lawyer has hit back at the federal government’s claims that his client exposed women to venereal disease as part of his racketeering case.

Douglas C. Anton wrote in court papers that there was “zero evidence” to support the government’s allegations that Kelly had infected a witness known as “Jane Doe,” with herpes during sexual encounters.

Anton said that although the feds assert that they have Kelly’s medical records, he questioned the manner that they procured Kelly’s records and wondered if the government could prove that the woman and Kelly had the same strain of the virus or who first contracted it.

Jane Doe No. 5 “has had her civil case pending for some months and she has not been able to prove a scintilla of her allegations and has offered no evidence to support her claims that Robert gave her herpes,” Anton wrote to the judge.

The lawyer said Kelly as been a law-abiding citizen for all of his life, and like anyone, has had consensual sex with “various people throughout his life, possibly more than normal people because he is a rock star.” But that didn’t mean that he did anything wrong, Anton insisted in court papers that were obtained by BOSSIP.

Kelly’s lawyer’s allegations were made as part of court docs to persuade the judge to allow Kelly to be released on bail. Kelly is set to be arraigned on Friday, where he will enter a plea in the case.

Anton wants Kelly released on his own recognizance, arguing that he’s surrendered his passport and is so broke that he and his other lawyers are working for free.

The judge has not ruled on whether or not to grant Kelly bail.

Source: Courtesy Bleecker Street / Bleecker Street

Have you seen the latest clip from the inspirational true story, Brian Banks? The drama stars Aldis Hodge, Greg Kinnear, Sherri Shepherd and Melanie Liburd.

The inspirational true story of Brian Banks (Aldis Hodge), an All-American high school football star committed to USC who finds his life upended when he is wrongly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Despite lack of evidence, Banks is railroaded through a broken justice system and sentenced to a decade of prison and probation. Years later, with the support of Justin Brooks (Greg Kinnear) and the California Innocence Project, Banks fights to reclaim his life and fulfill his dreams of playing in the NFL.

It was written by Doug Atchison and directed by Tom Shadyac. Bleecker Street will release the film in theaters on August 9th.

Source: JGI/Jamie Grill / Getty

A 39-year-old disabled Iraq war veteran was charged in the death of his one-year-old twins after he accidentally left them in the backseat of his car, while caring for the homeless and other vets. Juan Rodriguez, described by everybody as an amazing father, dropped his 4-year-old son off to daycare, then went about the rest of his day — forgetting the twins, who needed to be dropped off at a separate daycare center. While he is being blamed, social media is rallying on his behalf, saying he’s suffered enough.

From the NYPost:

By all accounts, he was a doting dad to his year-old twin son and daughter, setting up a bouncy castle in the yard for their recent first birthday party and dressing them in their latest cute outfits while his wife made breakfast in their Rockland County split-level. Then, on Saturday, Juan Rodriguez, 39, was hauled handcuffed before a judge, charged with the babies’ hot-car deaths. He forgot to drop them off at their day care Friday morning, Rodriguez has told cops — and didn’t realize they were still in the back seat when he parked at the Bronx hospital where he’s a social worker, court papers reveal. Eight hours later, the twins, Luna and Phoenix, registered an internal temperature of 108 degrees when coroners examined their bodies in their car seats. “I assumed I dropped them off at day care before I went to work,” Rodriguez told cops at the scene, according to the criminal complaint against him. “I blanked out!” he cried. “My babies are dead! I killed my babies!” Rodriguez was still sobbing at his arraignment Saturday night before Bronx Criminal Court Justice Patsy Goldborne. A disabled Iraq war veteran, he still wore the same turquoise polo shirt he’d worn Friday as he cared for homeless and ailing vets at his job at a VA hospital in Kingsbridge — oblivious that his twins were in the back seat of his Honda Accord in the parking lot.

ALSO READ: 10-Year-Old Black Student Charged With Aggravated Assault After White Peer Gets Hit During Game Of Dodgeball

A neighbor said it had to have been a mistake. The site also recalls the moment Rodriguez realized he left them in the car…

“This was just a horrible mistake,” neighbor Tony Caterino, 45, said of Rodriguez. “That one time you make a mistake, and you have to live with it for the rest of your life.” On Friday morning, Rodriguez had driven to work, as usual, from his home in New City, a middle-class, heavily wooded suburb an hour’s drive north of the city. Video shows it was 8:22 a.m. when he parked in the hospital parking lot, police sources said. The video shows him returning at one minute before 4 p.m. Rodriguez started the car and drove north toward home — only to pull over less than 10 minutes later, while still in the Bronx, on Kingsbridge Terrace. “I left them in the car!” he began screaming. Witnesses called 911; arriving medics could not revive the babies and they were pronounced dead at the scene.

We are praying for Rodriguez and his loved ones during this tragic time. This is unspeakably sad.

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