Lawyer Gloria Allred hosted a press conference Thursday (February 21) on behalf of two women who accuse R. Kelly of sexual misconduct.
The women, Latresa Scaff and Rochelle Washington, have not told their story publicly before. During the TMZ-streamed press conference, the women said they met R. Kelly at a concert he performed with LL Cool J in Baltimore in 1996, when Scaff and Washington were 16 and 15, respectively.
The teenagers were reportedly plied with drugs and alcohol at a show afterparty before being asked to wait for Kelly in his hotel room. They allege that they were told by Kelly’s entourage to “pull up [their] dresses” when the singer arrived. When Kelly arrived, he allegedly had his penis out, asked the girls to dance for him, and then engaged in oral sex and intercourse with Scaff, while Washington hid in the bathroom after refusing to participate in a threesome.
“When I met him, I was happy because I was young and starstruck,” Scaff said in the press conference. “However, now that I’m an adult, I feel hurt by what he did to me, when I was only 16 years old and under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, which was given to me at that party.”
Last week, The New Yorker reported that an indictment against Kelly was being assembled by Illinois prosecutors who had viewed a 43-minute tape featuring Kelly having intercourse and performing other sex acts with a 14-year-old girl on multiple occasions.
Footage of the tape, in which Kelly allegedly repeatedly refers to the girl’s age, was reportedly provided by attorney Michael Avenatti and viewed by CNN.