R Kelly’s manager goes on trial over ‘gun threat at cinema showing documentary’

R Kelly’s manager Donnell Russell leaves federal court (Mary Altaffer/AP)

R Kelly’s manager has gone on trial accused of forcing the cancellation of a showing of a documentary about the singer’s sexual abuse of women and girls by calling in a threat to a crowded Manhattan cinema.

In December 2018, Donnell Russell made a brief phone call from his Chicago home to the theatre, claiming someone with a gun was planning to shoot at the crowd watching Lifetime’s Surviving R Kelly series, assistant US attorney Lara Pomerantz told jurors.