New York
R. Kelly’s manager faces trial over 2018 threat that emptied theater
NEW YORK (AP) — The trial of R. Kelly’s manager opened Tuesday on charges that he forced the cancellation of a screening of a documentary about the singer’s sexual abuse of women and girls by calling in a threat to the crowded Manhattan theater.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz told jurors that Donnell Russell made a terrifying brief phone call in December 2018 from his Chicago home to the theater, claiming that someone with a gun was planning to fire on the crowd watching Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” series.
“He knew his words would sabotage the event,” she said.
The phone call prompted an emergency call to police, who ordered an evacuation that forced the cancellation of the premiere, including a live panel discussion that was to include several women featured in the documentary.
“The defendant wanted to keep the women quiet,” Pomerantz said in Manhattan federal court. She added that Russell was motivated by a desire to protect the lucrative career of the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling songwriter.
Kelly, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison last month, was convicted last year of racketeering and sex trafficking.
Defense attorney Michael Freedman told jurors that they would exonerate Russell if they study the evidence.
Freedman said there were a lot of phone calls to the theater on the day of the screening and jurors will “have to decide what it all means and what, if anything, it proves about my client.”
He said there was no recording of the phone threat so jurors cannot hear the voice that made it. But he added that there was not enough evidence to prove Russell committed a crime.
Adrian Krasniqi, who worked at the 25th Street venue, testified that he received the threatening call less than an hour after a man claiming to be part of Kelly’s legal team called and said the documentary was violating Kelly’s copyright to his name and should not be shown. He said the caller had a low, professional-sounding voice.
Krasniqi said the later call consisted of a deep-voiced man with a “slang tone, like a thug,” saying in a very serious and very blunt manner that “someone had a gun and they were going to shoot up the place.”
On cross examination, Krasniqi said he believed the caller had a Brooklyn accent, which he was familiar with because he lived in Brooklyn. He said he also thought the caller was outdoors when he made the threat.
Pomerantz said Russell demonstrated his guilt in part through his communications with a female co-conspirator who was at the theater at the time.
She said Russell sent the woman a text to say the police may be coming to the theater shortly before they did. And he later asked her to delete the text, although she never did, the prosecutor said.
Pomerantz said phone records to be introduced as evidence will show that Russell called the theater nine times on the day of the screening.
In a separate Kelly-related case, a fan of the performer pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court to charges he made threats against prosecutors in Kelly’s sex abuse trial. Court papers cite a video of defendant Christopher Gunn saying, “If Kellz goes down, everybody’s going down.”
A message was left with Gunn’s lawyer seeking comment.
Texas
2 indicted in migrant death-trailer case that left 53 dead
Two men were indicted Wednesday in the case of a hot, airless tractor-trailer rig found last month with 53 dead or dying migrants in San Antonio, officials said.
A federal grand jury in San Antonio indicted Homero Zamorano Jr., 46, and Christian Martinez, 28, both of Pasadena, Texas, on counts of transporting and conspiring to transport migrants illegally resulting in death; and transporting and conspiring to transport migrants illegally resulting in serious injury.
Both remain in federal custody without bond pending trial. Martinez’s attorney, David Shearer of San Antonio, declined to comment on the indictments. A message to Zamorano’s attorney was not immediately returned.
Conviction on the death counts could result in life sentences, but the Attorney General’s Office could authorize prosecutors to seek death penalties. The serious bodily injury counts carry sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
It was the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico. The truck had been packed with 67 people, and the dead included 27 from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, said Francisco Garduño, chief of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.
The incident happened on a remote San Antonio back road on June 27. Arriving police officers detained Zamorano after spotting him hiding in some nearby brush, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A search of Zamorano’s cellphone revealed calls with Martinez concerning the smuggling run.
Surveillance video of the 18-wheeler passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint showed the driver matched Zamorano’s description, according to the indictment. One survivor of the journey, a 20-year-old from Guatemala, told The Associated Press that smugglers had covered the trailer’s floor with what she believes was powdered chicken bouillon, apparently to throw off any dogs at the checkpoint.
The tragedy occurred at a time when huge numbers of migrants have been coming to the U.S., many of them taking perilous risks to cross swift rivers and canals and scorching desert landscapes. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago.
Of the 73 people in the truck, those who died included people from the Mexican states of Guanajuato, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Mexico, Zacatecas, Queretaro, Morelos and Mexico City. Migrants from Honduras and Guatemala also were among those who died in the deadliest known smuggling attempt in the United States.
In 2017, 10 people died after being trapped inside a truck parked at a San Antonio Walmart. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city.
