Who is R Kelly's attacker Jeremiah Shane Farmer? Latin Kings gang member once beat two men to death with hammer
The R Kelly case just got murkier after an inmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago, claimed he sneaked into the prison cell to attack the singer. Kelly was arrested in 2019 on federal charges alleging sex crimes after he was the subject of numerous allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct with underage girls back.
In a handwritten six-page legal filing to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals titled, "The Government Made Me Attack R Kelly", the attacker identified as Jeremiah Shane Farmer said he was forced to beat the Grammy-winning King of Pop-Soul behind the bars. The attack occurred at 9.45 am on August 26 and the legal document was filed on September 1.
"Farmer, with nowhere else to turn for legal help, was forced to assault hip-hop R&B singer Robert Kelly in hopes of getting spotlight attention and world news notice to shed the light on the government corruption," the documents read, adding, "Due to the most blatant government corruption in Farmer’s case, and being in lockdown for R Kelly protest, I physically beat Mr Kelly in an attempt to shed media spotlight on Farmer’s case to prove government corruption and helping Farmer’s innocence to prevail."
With that, the one big question remains: Who is Jeremiah Shane Farmer? A Latin Kings street gang member, he has been reportedly convicted of a racketeering conspiracy involving two 1999 northwest Indiana murders, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report. On June 25, 1999, he reportedly murdered Marion Lowry, 74, and Harvey Siegers, 67, at their Hammond business, Calumet Auto Rebuilders. The feds said the men were beaten to death with a hammer. At the time of his arrest, Farmer asked detectives, "Do you think I did it?" and quizzed whether it was a death-penalty case. "I want lethal injection," Farmer reportedly said. "I may as well say I’m guilty and get it over with."
According to Chicago CBS Local, he was then named along with five other purported Latin Kings gang members — who are also known as Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (ALKQN, ALKN, LKN) — and all of them were embroiled in a conspiracy to commit racketeering activity for distribution and possession of cocaine, marijuana and Xanax.
Now, in his legal filing, the 39-year-old felon did not explain the reason why he claims the government made him attack Kelly. He said he did so “in hopes of getting spotlight attention and world news notice to shed light on government corruption," as per the same report.
A mugshot released by Lake County (Indiana) Sheriff’s Department shows several tattoos on Farmer along with one on his face that reads 'F**k the Feds'. He once claimed that the two colored-in teardrop tattoos were symbols for all the people he had killed, according to court records. Reportedly, the lawyers who represented Farmer did not respond to messages seeking comment. Meanwhile, Steve Greenberg — one of Kelly’s defense lawyers — confirmed to the Chicago Sun-Times that Farmer is the detainee alleged to have attacked Kelly. In his filing, he reportedly said Farmer attacked Kelly because "protests supportive of Kelly outside the MCC have caused lockdowns within the facility".
At the time of the attack, a prison employee was trying to meet Farmer and had said that he "left the office against my order to stay". According to the report, Farmer entered a section of the jail to which he had not been assigned and when a unit officer opened the door after hearing some commotion, Farmer "appeared to be on top of" Kelly on the lower bunk in the cell. The report says that the prison employee wrote, “Inmate Farmer appeared to be punching inmate Kelly repeatedly in the head and torso,” and then claimed he ended the altercation using a pepper spray.
The same report also details how a mental health professional at the MCC told Farmer, "You don’t want to assault Kelly, if you did, you would have done it." In his filing, Farmer wrote the therapist "said some disrespect back" and was told "go do it then". That is what irked him and he "stormed out" and attacked Kelly despite being told to stop.
Now in jail, Farmer reportedly appealed for an extension to file his docketing statement, complaining that the Covid-19 pandemic had made it so he could not use the library computer to make legal copies in a timely fashion and was denied legal copies of his motions by an attorney and a judge. As per a Chicago CBS Local report, he claimed that every attorney who had been assigned to him had been "ineffective and conspired against" him.