Prosecutors said Russell, who had been a manager and adviser to Kelly, threatened to release sexually explicit photographs of a woman who sued Kelly.
In November 2018, Russell also had a letter mailed to the Kelly victim's Brooklyn-based lawyer, which included cropped nude photos of the victim along with the message,"the next two pictures have been cropped for the sake of not exposing her extremities to the world, yet!!!" prosecutors said. Russell also appeared on YouTube for interviews with two YouTube"vloggers" defending Kelly, and showed the photos there too, prosecutors said.– Michael Williams and Richard Arline Jr. – in August 2020. Arline, of Dolton, was accused of offering to pay a victim $500,000 to keep her from cooperating in Kelly's prosecution.
Williams was sentenced to eight years in prison in November of last year after pleading guilty to charges including arson. Arline pleaded guilty to bribery in February of this year, according to published reports. in a federal sex trafficking case out of New York. He is now being held back at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago, and is scheduled to go on trial starting again Aug. 15 at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, on child pornography and obstruction of justice charges.