R. Kelly manager faces trial over threat to a theater

• Tuesday marked the start of R. Kelly manager’s trial on allegations that he made a threat to the packed Manhattan theatre.
• Forcing it to cancel a documentary screening about the singer’s sexual abuse of women and girls.
• According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz, Donnell Russell made a terrifyingly brief phone conversation from his Chicago home.

Tuesday marked the start of R. Kelly manager’s trial on allegations that he made a threat to the packed Manhattan theatre. Forcing it to cancel a documentary screening about the singer’s sexual abuse of women and girls.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz, Donnell Russell made a terrifyingly brief phone conversation from his Chicago home. To the theatre in December 2018 in which he claimed that a shooter intended to open fire on the audience watching Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” series.

“He knew his words would sabotage the event,” she said.

The emergency call to the police in response to the phone call forced them to order an evacuation, which led to the cancellation of the premiere and a live panel discussion with several of the women featured in the documentary.

“The defendant wanted to keep the women quiet,” Pomerantz said in Manhattan federal court. She went on to say that Russell was driven by a desire to safeguard the successful career of the multi-platinum-selling, Grammy-winning songwriter.

Kelly, who received a 30-year prison term last month, was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking last year.
According to Russell’s defence attorney Michael Freedman, if the jury carefully considered the facts, Russell would be cleared.

Freedman said there were a lot of phone calls to the theater on the day of the screening and jurors will “have to decide what it all means and what, if anything, it proves about my client.”

He claimed that the phone threat was not recorded, making it impossible for the jury to identify the caller. But he added that there wasn’t enough proof to show Russell had broken the law.

The 25th Street venue employee Adrian Krasniqi testified that he received the threatening phone less than an hour after a call from a man purporting to be a member of Kelly’s legal team complaining that the documentary was infringing on Kelly’s copyright to his name and should not be aired. He claimed the caller had a low, authoritative voice.

According to Krasniqi, the subsequent call was made by a man with a strong voice and a “slang tone, like a thug,” who stated quite firmly and bluntly that “someone had a pistol and they were going to fire up the building.”
Krasniqi claimed during cross-examination that he thought the caller had a Brooklyn accent, something he was accustomed to because he resided in Brooklyn. He claimed that when he made the threat, he also believed the caller was outside.