Secret grand jury proceedings in R. Kelly’s Chicago case were briefly made public
CHICAGO — A recent motion by attorneys for R. Kelly’s former business manager, Derrell McDavid, did more than just seek government reimbursement of McDavid’s legal fees — it also lifted the curtain on secretive grand jury proceedings that led to the bombshell indictment in the first place.
In making the unusual argument that prosecutors should be on the hook for $850,000 in the wake of McDavid’s acquittal, attorney Beau Brindley attached transcripts of grand jury meetings and testimony that were supposed to remain under wraps essentially forever.
The transcripts — which were public for several hours Tuesday before prosecutors asked the court clerk to seal them — detail a crucial February 2020 meeting of the special grand jury where prosecutors were seeking the return of a superseding indictment against Kelly, McDavid, and a third associate, Milton “June” Brown.
While grand jury proceedings sometimes come out in open court in snippets of transcripts to buttress other testimony or impeach a witness on the stand, the filings in
