R. Kelly’s attacker in prison has been identified as a gang member who is now saying that the government made him attacked the singer.
The inmate who attacked incarcerated R&B legend R. Kelly has identified himself and given his reasons for the assault. Kelly has been behind bars since 2019 after being arrested on federal charges for various sex crimes and misconduct. A member of his legal team, Steve Greenberg, reported that his client was assaulted in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago and later moved to solitary confinement for protection. His attacker is a man named Jeremiah Shane Farmer, a Latin Kings gang member who has a checkered criminal record and a bone to pick with the law.
Farmer filed a six-page handwritten letter titled “the government made me attack R.Kelly”, in which he gave his rationale as an attempt to prove his innocence, TMZ reported. Farmer is the man R. Kelly’s lawyer identified “as an individual who is charged with the most violent of crimes, and one who plainly has no respect for the rules, he has the phrase ‘F*** The Feds’ tattooed on his face.” Farmer was reportedly convicted of a racketeering conspiracy involving two 1999 murders where he beat the middle-aged victims to death with a hammer.
While he was being arrested 21 years ago, Farmer asked detectives, “Do you think I did it?” and whether his case would attract the death-penalty. “I want lethal injection,” Farmer allegedly said then. “I may as well say I’m guilty and get it over with.” The felon seems to have made peace with his death wish and is now on a campaign to bring attention to his plight. As Greenberg suspected, Farmer has an issue with the facility lockdowns caused by pro-R. Kelly protests, among others.
The detainee wrote in his court filing, “due to the most blatant government corruption in Farmer’s case, and being in lockdown for R Kelly protest, I physically beat Mr Kelly in an attempt to shed media spotlight on Farmer’s case to prove government corruption and helping Farmer’s innocence to prevail.” He said he had nowhere else to turn for legal help and was forced to act “in hopes of getting spotlight attention and world news notice to shed light on government corruption.”
While he doesn’t exactly explain the extent of his claims, he says all the counsel assigned to him has been “ineffective and conspired against” him. Farmer also asserts that a psychiatrist at the Chicago facility said to him, “You don’t want to assault Kelly, if you did, you would have done it.” Farmer indicated that he “said some disrespect back,” after which the advisor said, “go do it then.” Following that, he “stormed out”, snuck into Kelly’s cell, and punched him repeatedly in the head and torso before being pepper sprayed to break up the brawl.
