The woman, Heather Williams, sued Kelly in February, the same month that he was arrested on charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four women, three of them underage at the time.
Because Kelly, 52, and his lawyers did not respond to the lawsuit or schedule a court appearance, the judge granted Williams’ request for a default judgment, her lawyer, Jeffrey Deutschman, said. If Kelly continues to be unresponsive, the judge will decide how much he must pay Williams after a hearing next month, Deutschman said.
Kelly’s lawyer, Steve Greenberg, did not immediately return requests for comment. Kelly’s publicist, Darrell Johnson, told the Chicago Sun-Times: “We don’t care about the lawsuit. The lawsuit means nothing to us.”
Williams is one of the four women Kelly, whose full name is Robert Kelly, is charged with abusing. In criminal court documents, she is referred to by her initials, but she used her full name in her lawsuit. Kelly has denied all accusations of abuse.
The lawsuit said that on Williams’ 16th birthday, in 1998, Kelly stopped in his car to speak with her while she was walking on a sidewalk in Chicago. Later that day, an associate of Kelly met Williams and her family at a restaurant and gave her Kelly’s number, according to the lawsuit. She said he told her that Kelly wanted her to be in a music video he was making.
In the criminal court documents, prosecutors said that she took a cab to Kelly’s studio, where they had intercourse and she performed oral sex on him. They had sex about once a month for a year.
The lawsuit said that Williams reckoned with those memories in therapy four years ago, realizing the psychological distress they had caused.
“My client wants to be paid as a result of the terrible treatment she went through as a minor,” Deutschman said in an interview. “All I’m able to do for her is get her money.”
Kelly came under intense scrutiny after the release of the Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” which chronicled abuse allegations by girls and women. The public backlash led to his being dropped by his record label and a push to boycott his music, fueling speculation that Kelly no longer has the income to afford an expensive team of lawyers. He was briefly jailed in March for failure to pay child support.
Last year, another woman sued Kelly in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleging that when she was 19, he initiated “nonconsensual oral and vaginal intercourse” and failed to tell her that he was infected with herpes. That lawsuit is pending.
Deutschman said that Williams will appear in court next month to detail her memory of her contact with Kelly when she was a teenager. He said that he plans to ask the judge to close that hearing to the public to protect his client’s privacy.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.