R Kelly accuser: Singer's former hairdresser claims he sexually abused her and 'has his DNA on shirt as proof'
Carter alleges that Kelly abused her in 2003
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Your support makes all the difference.A woman who has publicly identified herself as one of the four alleged victims in the R Kelly criminal case reportedly had the singer’s DNA on her shirt and submitted it to authorities.
Lanita Carter told CBS News in an interview that aired on Wednesday that she felt it was a “release” for her to publicly identify herself as one of the singer’s accusers.
“I’ve been carrying this since 2003,” Carter told CBS’s Jericka Duncan.
“I have had to sit on a public bus and watch public conversation: ‘Did you hear about what they did with R. Kelly? They need to leave that man alone.’ And I can’t stand up for myself.”
Carter, who told the network she was Kelly’s hair braider for about two years, alleges that when she was 24 year old, the singer attempted to force her to perform oral sex before masturbating and spitting in her face.
CBS reported citing Cook County prosecutors that Carter gave her shirt to the authorities, and that a semen sample on the top matched Kelly’s DNA profile.
A spokesperson for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office contacted by The Independent declined to comment.
Kelly is charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse accusing him of sexually abusing four women, including Carter and three who were underage at the time, during a roughly 10-year span starting in the late 1990s.
The singer Kelly has denied all of the allegations and his attorney, Steve Greenberg, told CBS News: “These allegations were fully investigated by the police and prosecutors ... and a decision was made, after evaluating all of the evidence, not to bring any charges.”
Greenberg told The Independent: “The Chicago police did an extensive investigation. At that time [an] other case was pending so had they charged R Kelly his bond would have been revoked. The states attorney’s office decided not to charge it.”
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CBS said Carter accepted a $650,000 settlement with Kelly less than a year after the alleged abuse that included a non-disclosure agreement, and she also accepted a $100,000 settlement after Kelly in 2009 released a song about having sex with a woman who braids hair.
Carter said she decided to contact authorities again with her allegations after the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R Kelly aired in January. Before the alleged abuse, she said, she told others Kelly had been a “perfect gentleman” with her.
Carter said Kelly’s interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning, during which he leapt up in anger and denied multiple allegations of abuse, led to her decision to break her public silence.
“I’m not ashamed of my past anymore,” she said. I’m not ashamed of what naysayers say.”
Additional reporting by agencies