R Kelly news: Singer 'briefly disappears' while being transported from Chicago to New York for court appearance

Lawyer Douglas Anton alleges he couldn't locate the singer after he landed in New Jersey

R Kelly leaves the Leighton Criminal Courts Building following a hearing on 26 June, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

R Kelly briefly went off the grid while being moved from Chicago to New York for a court appearance, according to his attorney.

The singer was in court in Brooklyn on Friday morning on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.

He landed in New Jersey on Thursday, after which his attorney Douglas Anton said Kelly became impossible to locate.

“I have spent the hours that followed his landing on the phone with the [Bureau of Prisons] at both New York ​[Metropolitan Correctional Center] ​and Brooklyn [Metropolitan Detention Center] trying to locate my client, but no one would provide that information to me, even recognising I am his attorney,” Anton wrote in a letter to judges, according to WDEL.

The lawyer eventually located his client, who was being held at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, according to the Bureau of Prisons' website.

Kelly pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he allegedly sexually exploited young women and girls who attended his concerts.

The singer was denied bail during the hearing at a Brooklyn federal courtroom.

Anton, Kelly’s attorney, entered the plea to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking before Magistrate Judge Steven Tiscione.

Kelly, dressed in blue and orange jail clothes, greeted the judge and answered “yes” when asked if he understood his rights. He was otherwise silent.

The audience in the packed courtroom included more than a dozen supporters of Kelly, one of whom wore a t-shirt that said “Free R Kelly”.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say that Kelly and his entourage allegedly invited women and girls backstage after concerts, kept them from friends and family and made them dependent on him financially.

Anton claimed in a court filing on Wednesday that Kelly’s fans were “dying to be with him” and that the charges amounted to “groupie remorse”.

Additional reporting by agencies