R Kelly sues feds for 'leaking private information to vlogger' while locked up in Chicago - as he now serves out his decades long sentence for sex crimes in North Carolina

Convicted sex criminal and singer R. Kelly is suing the Federal Bureau of Prisons for allegedly leaking private information about his incarceration to a popular YouTube gossip vlogger.

Kelly, 56, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison over sex trafficking and racketeering charges in February of this year. 

Jennifer Bonjean, an attorney for Kelly who has said in the past he is 'not a predator,' filed a suit alleging that 60 federal prison officials improperly gained access to the singer's records between July 2019 and January 2020 when he was serving time in Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. 

A federal investigation began in September 2021 for allegedly leaking a treasure trove of illegally-accessed information about the disgraced musician.

The online personality, known as Tasha K, posted a number of videos in which she sips wine and shares salacious information to her thousands of followers, quoting verbatim from Kelly's recorded phone calls, emails and visitor logs.

The lawsuit contends that the leaks continued after the investigation began, with an officer illegally getting Kelly's records as recently as August 2022, according to the Chicago Tribune.  

Bonjean said the federal government 'had a duty to protect [Kelly] and his private and sensitive information.' 

She claims they 'allowed countless BOP officers to access [Kelly's] confidential information without any legal basis to do so.'

'There has been a cover-up of the rampant BOP misconduct that is ongoing,' and the leak 'created chaos in [Kelly's] personal life,' Bonjean added.

Kelly is currently serving out his sentence at a facility in North Carolina. 

The officer, named in the warrant as Officer A, is accused of illegally accessing Kelly’s private information while he was an inmate at Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center and leaking it to 39 year-old Tasha K, whose real name is Latasha Kebe. She has not yet been charged with any crime. 

Before diving into juicy details about Kelly's life in one of her videos, Kebe says 'Now, I told you I got the m***********g plug. This is all facts, no allegedly, all facts.' 

The female officer, who retired in December 2019, allegedly accessed Kelly’s records more than 150 times in a six-month period before her departure and emailed herself a 12-page scan of his jail records. 

The officer worked as a disciplinary hearing officer at a federal prison in Wisconsin, was not even assigned to the MCC and 'had no official reason' to be searching for Kelly's information, as stated in the 24-page warrant obtained by the Tribune. 

Some of the private information involves Kelly’s contentious relationships with two girlfriends – Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary – who were living in his high-rise apartment at a Trump Tower residence in Chicago at the time. 

Tasha K reveals in one video that Kelly allegedly had a friend bring $1,500 in cash to the apartment to help pay for his girlfriends’ bills.

The vlogger, who is known for sipping from a giant glass of wine while sharing her gossip, says, ‘Yeah there’s a phone tap somewhere and I’m not gonna tell you where it’s at. I have the plug. I’m not gonna tell you where I got the information from, but just listen to the damn information, OK?’

In another video, posted on Dec. 22, 2019 and titled ‘R. Kelly RELEASED Emails PROVES he can’t read or write,’ she scrolls through her phone and reads email exchanges Kelly had with his girlfriends from prison before saying, ‘ . . . these are actual conversations between them I'm not gonna put it up here because this is considered like somebody's private information or whatever but you know my word trust me.’ 

Tasha said she was sharing the emails to highlight Kelly's alleged illiteracy.  

The warden of Chicago’s MCC first reported to BOP internal affairs in November 2019 that Tasha K. ‘had revealed sensitive law enforcement information’ that would only be known to employees from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons who were responsible for regularly monitoring his behavior at the correctional facility, according to the warrant.

According to the Chicago Tribune, a review of Officer A’s logins to the Bureau of Prisons internal information system revealed that she illegally accessed Kelly’s records 153 times between the time Kelly first arrived at MCC in July 2019 and before her retirement in December 2019.

The officer also allegedly accessed and printed out Kelly’s visitor logs and payments made into and out of his commissary account, which showed who was sending Kelly money while he was in jail.

The 39-year-old Atlanta-based blogger, whose real name is Latasha Kebe, shares her videos as ‘exclusive’ peaks into the entanglements of R. Kelly. Some of her videos include interviews with key players, but others offer information not even shared in court. 

Tasha K now has 966K subscribers on YouTube, where she posts on the account Unwinewithtashak. 

In 2019, she became embroiled in a legal battle with Cardi B, who she sued for more than $3 million after the popstar allegedly responded to one of the blogger’s videos by telling gang members to 'handle' her, according to reporting from TMZ at the time.

Cardi B came out successful in their legal battle in July 2021 after a judge couldn’t find any evidence that Cardi B made actual threats. 

The disgraced R&B star was accused of abusing young girls last September following a nearly six-week trial that amplified accusations that had dogged the singer of the Grammy-winning hit 'I Believe I Can Fly' since the early 2000s.  

The judge told him at the time that he taught his victims that 'love is enslavement and violence,' and 'the public needs to be protected.'

Judge Ann M. Donnelly handed down Kelly's sentence in Brooklyn Federal Court, despite the defense lawyers' request for a sentence of 10 years or less. Prosecutors had asked for at least 25 years.

Donnelly told Kelly he created 'a trail of broken lives,' adding that 'the most seasoned investigators will not forget the horrors your victims endured.'

'These crimes were calculated and carefully planned and regularly executed for almost 25 years,' she said. 'You taught them that love is enslavement and violence.'

Kelly, who declined to speak at his sentencing, learned his fate after some of his accusers told the court, through tears and anger, that he had preyed on them and misled his fans. He was also was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been detained at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his trial. It has not been revealed where Kelly would spend his sentence.

Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said the sentence is a 'significant' outcome for all victims of R. Kelly, who he called 'a predator.'

'He continued committing his crimes for almost 30 years and avoided punishment — until today.'

'These are the voices of mostly Black and brown women and children who were heard and believed. Justice was finally achieved. This is a victory for them, for justice, and victims of sexual assault. Victims must be heard, perpetrators must be held accountable, and women and children must be protected.'

He said he hopes the sentencing shows that 'it doesn't matter how rich [and] famous' an abuser is to be brought to justice.

Lizzette Martinez, one of the victims who spoke earlier at the hearing, said she doesn't think Kelly's sentence is enough 'but I'm pleased with it.'

Martinez, who described herself to the reporters as an 'up-and-coming singer, a girl full of life' before she met R Kelly and became 'a sex slave.'

Gloria Allred, the lawyer for the victims, said she was proud of the them for their fight.

'They wanted the court to understand their pain,' she said. 'Together they were able to fight his power by becoming empowered,' she added. 'I'm proud of all of them.'

The sentence capped a slow-motion fall for Kelly, who was adored by legions of fans and sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.

Widespread outrage over Kelly's sexual misconduct didn't come until the #MeToo reckoning, reaching a crescendo after the release of the docuseries 'Surviving R. Kelly.'

Allegations that Kelly abused young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s. He was sued in 1997 by a woman who alleged sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor, and he later faced criminal child pornography charges related to a different girl in Chicago. A jury there acquitted him in 2008, and he settled the lawsuit.

But last year, the jury convicted the 'I Believe I Can Fly' hitmaker after hearing about how he used his entourage of managers and aides to meet girls and keep them obedient, an operation prosecutors said amounted to a criminal enterprise.

Several accusers testified that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.

The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as 'Rob's rules.'

Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.

According to testimony, Kelly gave several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD, coerced a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage, and shot a shaming video of one victim showing her smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.

Evidence also was presented about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.

Aaliyah worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, 'Age Ain't Nothing But A Number.' She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.

The abuse continued for years while Kelly continued to sell millions of albums.