Editor’s Note: This story contains discussions of rape or sexual assault that may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can find help and discreet resources on the National Sexual Assault Hotline website or by calling 800-656-4673.
(NewsNation) — Lawyers for R. Kelly say the singer overdosed last week on medication given to him by prison staff, a claim that follows a previous allegation that the singer’s life was in danger.
In a June 17 filing, lawyers say that after the 58-year-old R&B singer was put in solitary confinement and given an “overdose quantity” of sleep and anxiety medication, which led to his being hospitalized.
Kelly’s team says he was put in solitary confinement after an emergency motion was filed calling for him to be moved to home detention.
R. Kelly spent 2 days in the hospital
Lawyers say Kelly woke up Friday feeling dizzy, with black spots in his vision and unable to get up without falling. The filing says he crawled to the door of his cell before fainting.
Kelly was then taken to the hospital by ambulance and hospitalized for two days.
The filing also says Kelly was removed from the Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, where he had been treated against medical advice.
“Then, they took him out of a hospital at gunpoint and denied him surgery on blood clots in his lungs that the hospital said needed immediate intervention,” the filing said.
Kelly’s attorney, Beau Brindley, said Tuesday on NewsNation’s “Banfield” that his client was then removed to solitary confinement with blood clots in his lungs.
Brindley said they are trying to obtain medical records to support all the details: “We are fighting very hard to get him to the hospital and save his life,” Brindley told NewsNation.
“This is a threat to R. Kelly’s life that we see happening right now at the hands of Bureau Prisons officials. What we believe they are trying to prevent is the exposure of the criminal conduct by U.S. attorneys and Bureau Prisons officers in the investigation of his federal cases in New York and Chicago and that is what we intend to expose in our filing this week regarding newly discovered evidence,” Brindley told NewsNation.
R. Kelly’s attorney says prison officials conspired with Aryan Brotherhood
Last week, Kelly’s attorney claimed that federal prison officials conspired with a member of the Aryan Brotherhood to murder the imprisoned rapper. The attorney also claimed that the government wanted Kelly dead to stop him from exposing alleged corruption in the Bureau of Prisons.
The emergency motion, filed by Brindley, asked for Kelly to be taken to home detention. It also claimed that three officials devised a plot with the gang to have him killed by another inmate.
“The Bureau of Prisons instructed Mikeal Glenn Stine to go to Butner and execute R. Kelly,” Brindley said on NewsNation’s “Banfield.”
FILE – In this Sept. 17, 2019 file photo, R. Kelly appears during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool, File) 
FILE – R. Kelly leaves the Daley Center after a hearing in his child support case, May 8, 2019, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Marton, File) 
FILE – Musician R. Kelly leaves the Leighton Criminal Court building in Chicago on June 6, 2019. Kelly’s federal trial starts Monday in Chicago. (AP Photo/Amr Alfiky, File) 
FILE – R&B singer R. Kelly enters the Cook County Criminal Court Building, Wednesday, May 28, 2008, in Chicago. R. Kelly, the R&B superstar known for his anthem “I Believe I Can Fly,” deserves at least 25 years behind bars for sexually abusing women and girls, prosecutors said in a memo filed Wednesday, June 8, 2022 in advance of his sentencing later this month.(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File) 
In this courtroom sketch, R. Kelly and his attorney Jennifer Bonjean, left, appear during his sentencing hearing in federal court, Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in New York. The former R&B superstar was convicted of racketeering and other crimes. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams) 
In this courtroom sketch, R. Kelly briefly addresses Judge Ann Donnelly during his sentencing in federal court, Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in New York. R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for using his superstardom to subject young fans — some just children — to systematic sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams) 
In this courtroom sketch, R. Kelly, center, sits with his defense attorneys Thomas Farinella, top, and Nicole Blank Becker during the first day of his defense in his sex trafficking case, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams) 
In this courtroom artist’s sketch R. Kelly, left, listens during his trial in New York, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021. The 54-year-old Kelly has repeatedly denied accusations that he preyed on several alleged victims during a 30-year career highlighted by his mega hit “I Believe I Can Fly.” (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams) 
FILE – This photo from Friday May 9, 2008, shows R. Kelly arriving for the first day of jury selection in his child pornography trial at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. On Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, prosecutors in Kelly’s sex trafficking trial at Brooklyn Federal Court in New York, played video and audio recordings for the jury they say back up allegations he abused women and girls. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File) 
In this courtroom artist’s sketch made from a video screen monitor of a Brooklyn courtroom, defendant R. Kelly, left, listens during the opening day of his trial, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021 in New York. The prosecutor described sex abuse claims against Kelly, saying the long-anticipated trial now underway was “about a predator” who used his fame to entice girls, boys and young women before dominating and controlling them physically, sexually and psychologically. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams) 
FILE – This photo from Wednesday June 26, 2019, shows R&B singer R. Kelly arriving at the Leighton Criminal Court in Chicago for arraignment on sex-related charges. Federal prosecutors in New York on Friday, July 23, 2021 asked a judge for permission to admit more evidence for which Kelly has not been charged, at his upcoming sex-trafficking trial in Brooklyn. (AP Photo/Amr Alfiky, File)
Bridnley also said that Stine, who is a member of the gang and has terminal cancer, was solicited to kill the rapper because Kelly was “about to expose some facts that would be extremely inflammatory and damaging to the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice.”
Kelly is serving a 30-year sentence at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, for racketeering and sex trafficking. He faced accusations from multiple women who say he sexually abused them, some of them when they were underage.