Latest news with #Brindley
Perth Now
10-07-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Indigenous product makers taking home the chocolates
It was buying a bar of chocolate that started Sharon Brindley on her own food manufacturing journey. The Yamatji and Noongar woman had bought the treat thinking it was from an Indigenous-owned company, going by its packaging and presentation. But when she discovered it was not, the experience inspired her business Jala Jala Treats. "It put a fire in my belly to highlight our native flavours in the chocolate space," Ms Brindley told AAP. The budding chocolatier had already gained plenty of experience in the native food space, founding Cooee Cafe and Catering on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. But she knew she wanted to get into food manufacturing to help raise awareness of First Nations businesses in the native food industry. Ms Brindley is preparing to spread that message further, beginning the process of exporting the Jala Jala Treats range of native-ingredient chocolates and teas to Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. Ms Brindley said these markets have a real thirst to 'get a piece of the real Australia' through Indigenous products. "The interest from overseas is not surprising ... but I think it's coming now because they're getting a better understanding of the culture in Australia," she said. Data from Austrade shows Indigenous goods exporters generated more than $670 million in turnover in 2022/23. Her export dreams are being assisted by Asialink, the national centre for engagement with Asia based at the University of Melbourne, whose chief executive Leigh Howard said businesses like Ms Brindley's resonate with markets in the region like never before. "Buyers are seeking products with a clear story, ethical sourcing and natural ingredients, and First Nations businesses stand out, especially when stories of land care, cultural heritage and community are central to the brand," he said. A landmark report from Supply Nation released on Monday found Indigenous businesses create $42.6 billion of social value each year, including agency over life, expanded aspirations, financial security and mental health. Jala Jala Treats is now Victoria's largest Indigenous female-owned food manufacturing company. This is a double-edged sword for Ms Brindley, with First Nations businesses only owning a fraction (one per cent) of the native food industry in Australia, she said. Her hope is Jala Jala's success will help raise awareness of this, and help other businesses to grow alongside hers. "Support with exporting, but also support from people making sure they're ethically buying is super important," she said. "Although I love being the largest manufacturer in this space, it's almost sad because we deserve to be up there highlighting our products, including our native ingredients in a modern way."
Los Angeles Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
R. Kelly is hospitalized and lawyer blames alleged murder plot. Feds call the allegations ‘fanciful'
R. Kelly collapsed in prison Friday and had to be hospitalized outside prison walls, then didn't get care that hospital staff said he needed, his attorney alleged in a Monday court filing. The disgraced R&B singer's attorney said federal prison officials attempted to kill Kelly via a drug overdose Friday, two days after a previous motion was filed stating that the 'I Believe I Can Fly' singer was in danger from an interstate plot involving prison authorities and the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Authorities are allegedly trying to prevent Kelly from spilling compromising information about misconduct by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons, per court documents filed on Kelly's behalf and reviewed by The Times. The federal government dismissed the intentional overdose allegations, filing a response Tuesday that characterized the idea of a prison murder plot as 'fantastic' and 'fanciful.' Kelly, 58, is serving 30-year and 20-year federal sentences that are largely concurrent at the FCI Butner prison facility in North Carolina after convictions in Illinois and New York on charges of child sex crimes and racketeering. Last week, attorney Beau B. Brindley filed an emergency furlough request on the singer's behalf, stating that he was the target of a BOP-related murder plot involving a member or members of the racist Aryan Brotherhood being told to order his killing. The filing included a sworn declaration from Brotherhood honcho Mikeal Glenn Stine, who has been incarcerated since 1982 and said he chose to come clean to Kelly about the alleged plot because he is 'a dying man' with terminal cancer and wanted BOP officials to be held accountable for decades of using inmates for their own purposes. The solution? Brindley asked that his client to be sent to home detention for an unspecified amount of time until the threat is gone. The filing insisted that time was 'of the essence' in a plot that allegedly was hatched in February 2023. That threat, he said in the Monday filing, loomed larger than ever after Kelly was taken to solitary confinement early last week with medicines for sleep and anxiety in his possession, then was given additional medications by prison officials along with instructions on how to take them. Brindley said he filed the initial motion alleging the murder plot two days after that, on June 12. 'In the early morning hours of June 13, 2025, Mr. Kelly awoke,' the additional Monday motion said. 'He felt faint. He was dizzy. He started to see black spots in his vision. Mr. Kelly tried to get up, but fell to the ground. He crawled to the door of the cell and lost consciousness. He was placed on a gurney. Prison officials wanted him to be taken to the on-site medical facility, but staff there could not assist him. Consequently, Mr. Kelly was taken by ambulance to nearby Duke University Hospital. While in the ambulance, he heard one of the prison officers with him state: 'this is going to open a whole new can of worms.'' Kelly learned at the hospital that he had been given a life-threatening overdose amount of medication, Brindley said in the Monday motion. The singer was hospitalized for two days for treatment. '[W]ithin two days of the filing of his [initial] motion, Bureau of Prisons officials administered an amount of medication that significantly exceeded a safe dose and caused Mr. Kelly to overdose, putting his life in jeopardy. They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him,' the Monday motion said. In a response to the Kelly team's initial filing from last week, prosecutors said Tuesday that the singer was asking the court to let him go home indefinitely 'under the guise of a fanciful conspiracy.' They argued that the district court in Illinois doesn't have jurisdiction over Kelly's request for a change in his sentence and therefore need not consider the request. 'The government disputes the fantastic allegations in Kelly's motion,' U.S. Atty. Andrew S. Boutros wrote. 'Kelly is in prison because he is a serial child molester whose criminal abuse of children dates back to at least President Clinton's first term in office — decades before Kelly was taken into federal custody.' Kelly's legal team doubled down on its allegations Tuesday in a reply to that government response, alleging that 'the Federal Bureau of Prisons is taking active steps to kill Robert Kelly' and had 'overdosed Mr. Kelly on medications and nearly killed him,' then 'took him out of a hospital at gunpoint and denied him surgery on blood clots in his lungs that the hospital said needed immediate intervention.' The blood clots reference was related to an allegation that Kelly had been seeking medical care for a swollen leg but had been denied. 'The government doesn't care if R. Kelly is killed in the Bureau of Prisons,' Brindley said in his Tuesday reply. 'They don't care if he dies in solitary confinement. That is obvious. The smug and sanctimonious tenor of their briefing makes that plain. But there is nothing sanctimonious about what is happening to Mr. Kelly.'
Business Insider
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
R. Kelly wants Trump's help after his lawyer alleges surreal murder plot conspiracy story
Convicted sex trafficker R. Kelly is hoping for President Donald Trump's help, said his lawyer, who has alleged that federal prison officials have devised a plot to kill the disgraced R&B singer in prison. "Bureau of Prisons officers and officials are actively taking actions to kill R. Kelly," Kelly's Chicago-based attorney, Beau Brindley, told Business Insider in a statement on Tuesday. Brindley did not provide any evidence of the alleged plot to Business Insider, and prosecutors have called the accusations a "fanciful conspiracy" in court documents. "It is now undeniable. And, it is because of this growing and imminent threat that we continue to seek the intervention of President Trump," Brindley said in a written statement. "He may be the only power in this country that can save a life and end this corruption before its too late." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider about whether Kelly's camp has reached out or whether Trump would ever consider a pardon for Kelly. Brindley alleged in court documents filed this week that the incarcerated "Ignition" singer was rushed to a North Carolina hospital after officials at a prison in the state intentionally gave Kelly an "overdose" of his medication. Kelly, given name Robert Sylvester Kelly, was taken by ambulance from the prison in Butner, NC — where he is serving a 30-year sentence for sex trafficking and racketeering — to Duke University Hospital on Friday, Brindley said in the court papers. "At the hospital, Mr. Kelly learned that he had been administered an overdose quantity of his medications that threatened his life," his lawyer wrote. Brindley said in the court documents that Kelly had been moved to solitary confinement "against his will" last week after the attorney filed an emergency motion for his client's temporary release, alleging that Bureau of Prisons officials had solicited another inmate to have Kelly killed. A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment to Business Insider, saying the agency does not comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings. "For privacy, safety, and security reasons, we do not discuss the conditions of confinement for any incarcerated individual, including medical and health-related issues," the spokesperson said in response to questions about Kelly's hospitalization. Brindley wrote in the court papers filed this week in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that "within two days of the filing of his motion, Bureau of Prisons officials administered an amount of medication that significantly exceeded a safe dose and caused Mr. Kelly to overdose, putting his life in jeopardy." "They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him," Brindley wrote in the court documents, which said Kelly takes medication for anxiety and to help him sleep, in addition to other medications. Kelly awoke on Friday feeling "faint" and "dizzy," Brindley wrote in the court papers, adding that Kelly "tried to get up, but fell to the ground" and later lost consciousness. Brindley wrote that while at the hospital, blood clots were discovered in Kelly's legs and lungs, and that Kelly was told he would need surgery. "Within an hour, officers with guns came into his hospital room and removed Mr. Kelly. He was taken from the hospital against his will and against the directives of the doctors," the court filing says. "He was denied the surgery he needs to clear blood clots in his lungs that threaten his life." In another filing this week, Brindley wrote, "These are outright acts by prison officials to put in jeopardy the life of a man who has endeavored to expose crimes committed by these officials themselves." Brindley represented Kelly's former business manager in the singer's federal sex crimes trial in Chicago. That case was tried in front of the same federal judge who, in 2015, acquitted Brindley of charges connected to a scheme to present perjured testimony in a 2009 trial. Prosecutors, in court filings of their own, responded to Kelly's motion, saying: "This is the behavior of an abuser and a master manipulator on display. Kelly is always the victim." "This Court should not allow Kelly to turn its docket into a grocery store checkout aisle tabloid," prosecutors wrote in a Monday filing. In another filing, prosecutors called Kelly a "prolific child molester" who "has never taken responsibility for his years of sexually abusing children, and he probably never will." They wrote that Kelly was asking for indefinite release from prison "under the guise of a fanciful conspiracy." "Kelly's motion makes a mockery of the harm suffered by Kelly's victims and flouts this Court's previous ruling that this Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain Kelly's complaints about the conditions of his confinement," prosecutors wrote. The prosecutors also called Kelly's motion "repugnant to the sentence that this Court imposed for deeply disturbing offenses." Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in 2022 in a New York court, and later sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2023 in Chicago on sex crimes charges, including child pornography. He was ordered to serve 19 years of his 20-year sentence concurrently with his 30-year sentence.
The Herald Scotland
13-06-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
R. Kelly's lawyers seeking Trump pardon
Brindley said in his statement that Kelly's legal team believes Trump is the "only person with the courage and the power to fight corruption in the prosecution of public figures and stomp it out." "The president understands what it's like to be victimized by Obama and Biden era prosecution teams' intent on destroying public figures. He experienced that himself," Brindley continued, comparing the disgraced singer-songwriter to Trump. "R. Kelly is now living with the consequences of the same kind of shameful and criminal prosecutorial tactics," the lawyer said. R. Kelly's lawyers: 'Our client fears that he might be killed' "President Trump has been fighting against this kind of criminal weaponization of the DOJ against public figures since he took office," Brindley added. "And we will ask him to now stand up with us as we advance his fight and as our client fears that he might be killed to cover up the corruption that we seek to expose." In his statement, Brindley said the need for a pardon from Trump "becomes more imminent by the day," claiming that "immediately after our motion became public, Robert was thrown into solitary confinement" and he "cannot make phone calls to his family" nor does he have "access to commissary." "He has spiders crawling over him while he tries to sleep," Kelly's lawyer claims. "He has not been able to eat in two days because he's afraid the chow hall food could be poisoned. And they refuse to give him anything else." R. Kelly's lawyers say prison officials tried to plot his murder, requests release "The worst of it is that they have told him that, as long as we keep up our investigation and our motions, it is only going to get worse for Robert," Brindley claimed. "This is why we need President Trump to step in now. He is the only force strong enough to quell the corruption before it gets worse." R. Kelly's lawyers say prison officials tried to plot his murder, requests release News of the pardon attempt comes a day after lawyers for the "I Believe I Can Fly" singer said on June 11 that Kelly should be moved from federal prison to home detention after an alleged murder-for-hire plot involving prison officials and an inmate. "Federal officers have solicited the murder of R. Kelly because he intends to expose the corruption underlying his federal prosecutions. We have filed our motion to make sure that they fail," Brindley wrote in a statement to USA TODAY June 11. "The only thing that can protect Mr. Kelly behind the prison walls now is the fact that now the world is watching," Brindley added. "And we will call on the courts and President Trump to help put an end to the corruption that now threatens Mr. Kelly's life." The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on "pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings." R. Kelly pardon attempt comes after Trump pardoned Chrisleys, NBA YoungBoy The pardon attempt comes just weeks after a pair of star-studded pardons from Trump. On May 27, Trump announced he was pardoning reality TV couple Todd and Julie Chrisley of "Chrisley Knows Best" fame. The pair were serving respective sentences for bank fraud. The Chrisleys have since been released and returned to their homes. On May 28, Trump also pardoned Louisiana-born rapper NBA YoungBoy, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden, who was serving a 23-month sentence for federal gun charges. Kelly is serving his sentence in North Carolina after his 2021 and 2022 convictions for racketeering, sex trafficking, child pornography and enticement. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in a Brooklyn federal court in 2022 and 20 years in a Chicago federal court in 2023, to be served concurrently. One year from the latter sentence is set to be served consecutively.
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
R Kelly seeks pardon from President Donald Trump amidst solitary confinement and safety concerns
R. Kelly is reportedly seeking a presidential pardon from Donald Trump , amidst claims from his attorney that he is being subjected to solitary confinement in retaliation for requesting home confinement over safety concerns. Attorney Beau Brindley revealed he has been in contact with individuals close to President Donald Trump, seeking his intervention in the case. Speaking to Variety, the attorney argued, 'I think it's a particular interest to President Trump because, unlike most people who come to this with an air of skepticism, [he] has a personal unique understanding of what it's like to be victimized by prosecution teams and put through that experience through corrupt and criminal hacks. ' Brindley went on to add, 'He understands what that's like, and when he knows that it's being escalated to the point of a death threat to hide the corruption that we're trying to put out there, he's perhaps the only person that there is who is going to have the courage to pull the trigger and say I want to stop it now.' The Grammy-winning artist, currently serving a 30-year sentence at a federal facility in North Carolina for racketeering and violations of the Mann Act involving the sexual exploitation of minors, filed an emergency motion earlier this week alleging serious threats to his life behind bars. In the motion filed Tuesday, attorney Brindley alleged that prison officials had 'solicited an inmate to murder Kelly,' leading to the singer's current placement in solitary confinement. Brindley claims the conditions are not protective but punitive in nature. 'Where he's sleeping now, he has spiders crawling all over him,' Brindley told Variety . 'This isn't protection — it's punishment for pursuing this. So he remains in solitary. He has not eaten for three days because he's been only offered food that's coming directly from the chow halls that's prepared by the inmates, which he was warned not to eat by one of the officials at the prison who we left anonymous for his own security.' Brindley also alleged in the filing that government officials violated attorney-client privilege by intercepting confidential communications to secure Kelly's conviction and that the threats against his life began as retaliation for attempting to expose this alleged misconduct. 'He's begging me to find a way to help him, because this isn't right,' Brindley added. 'And I'm going to do everything in my power to do it.'
