After Charlamagne Tha God sought to have a 2001 sexual assault lawsuit in opposition to him tossed for lack of proof, the rapper and radio persona faces renewed authorized assault from the now lawyered-up rape accuser.
In 2001, 15-year-old Jessica Reid alleged that rapper and DJ Charlamagne Tha God, whose actual title is Lenard Larry McKelvey, raped her throughout a celebration he threw in South Carolina. On the time, McKelvey pleaded responsible to a lesser cost of contributing to the delinquency of a minor however denied any sexual assault passed off. He was sentenced to a few years probation.
Whereas a rape equipment was performed that confirmed an assault had taken place, and police arrested McKelvey shortly thereafter, the case didn’t go very far. Reid grew to become uncooperative, allegedly at her mom’s behest, who thought {the teenager} would undergo extra with public consideration. The prosecution felt they might not convict McKelvey with out Reid’s help.
“Whereas the instruments and expertise of justice have advanced, in instances involving private violence, the State will need to have the witness to prosecute,” wrote South Carolina Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson in 2018. “Too usually, the important thing witness won’t come ahead in assist of prison prosecution.”
Reid has since tried to reopen the case with restricted success, first in 2018 and once more in 2022. With renewed lawyer backing, Jessica Reid is shifting to reopen her criticism in 2023.
Among the many roadblocks Reid has confronted, McKelvey and his lawyer filed paperwork in 2022 refuting that the DNA from the alleged 2001 incident matched his DNA, thus proving his maintained innocence.
“(Reid) has endured in broadly disseminating her unsubstantiated claims, ignoring that the South Carolina Solicitor in 2018 declined her request to reopen the case resulting from an absence of proof whereas confirming that no foundation existed to convey sexual assault costs in opposition to Charlamagne,” McKelvey’s submitting reads.
“This is similar sexual assault declare that was totally investigated and dismissed by authorities in South Carolina greater than 21 years in the past,” wrote McKelvey’s lawyer Michael Weinsten. “At the moment, my shopper voluntarily submitted his DNA, and it was confirmed his DNA was not present in her rape equipment. It’s also the identical matter that Ms. Reid tried to reopen in 2018 that the South Carolina Solicitor Normal declined to reopen, suggesting, amongst different issues, it was ‘not moral’ to take action.”
Reid additionally filed a federal lawsuit in opposition to McKelvey in a New York court docket in 2022, accusing him of “willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously (partaking) in penile/vaginal intercourse with a fifteen-year-old feminine baby” when he was 22, within the 2001 incident.