Michael Avenatti has attempted to play down rival celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred's claim to have found a third tape of R. Kelly sexually abusing children and says it is likely the same footage that circulated years ago which Kelly was acquitted over.
Allred announced the footage at a press conference last week. The tape was found by couple Gary and Sallie Dennis and was labeled 'R. Kelly'.
They say it was filmed in the 1990s and showed the embattled singer having sex with underage girls. Allred has handed it to police for them to investigate further.
Avenatti, who claims to have found two other tapes of the singer having sex with underage girls, however dismissed her claims in a tweet on Sunday.
He said the footage was 'most likely' the same as a bootleg video which circulated in the early 2000s on Chicago street corners.
Michael Avenatti dismissed Gloria Allred's claims against R. Kelly in a tweet on Sunday and said the tape she claims to have come into possession of and handed to police is 'old evidence'
Gloria Allred held a press conference on Sunday with Gary Dennis who claims to have found a tape showing R. Kelly having sex with a minor in his attic
In 2001 and 2002, two separate tape surfaced which both allegedly showed Kelly having sex with underage girls.
They first appeared in the mailboxes of journalists in Chicago who then sent them to the police.
Kelly was indicted in 2002 but the case did not go to trial until 2008 and he was acquitted by a jury who said that while they believed it was him in the tap, they could not be sure that the girl was the underage victim prosecutors claimed it was.
In his tweet, Avenatti wrote: 'The tape referenced by Ms. Allred today is most likely a copy of a tape that was sold at flea markets/street corners throughout Chicago in the early 2000s.
Avenatti has launched his own allegations against Kelly. He claims to have found two tapes of the singer engaging in sex acts with underage girls and has given them to police
'Thousands of copies of the same tape were sold and prosecutors have known about it since approx. 2001. This is old evidence.'
He is fighting to have Kelly charged on further counts after claiming to have come into possession of two other tapes.
Kelly is currently on bail on child rape and rape charges which apply to four different women, three of whom were underage when the alleged crimes happened between 1998 and 2010.
His attorneys say it is 'open season' on R. Kelly and that he has never had sex with an underage girl.
'R Kelly denies that he is on any tape with underaged girls.
'The doubt here is self-evident, with reporting that the man on the tape kinda, sorta looks like R Kelly. That doesn't make it him. It is not him,' his lawyer Steve Greenberg told TMZ on Sunday.
Gary and Sally Dennis say they found the
