AP Seeking Legal Action In False R. Kelly Story

The Associated Press is reportedly seeking legal action against the unidentified authors of a false story incriminating R&B superstar R. Kelly, AP representatives said. The AP’s legal department is investigating the origin of the website that first ran a false story alleging that R. Kelly made sexual advances to Shia “Shi Shi” Douglas, the younger […]

The Associated Press

is reportedly seeking legal action against the unidentified authors of a false

story incriminating R&B superstar R. Kelly, AP representatives said.

The AP’s

legal department is investigating the origin of the website that first ran a

false story alleging that R. Kelly made sexual advances to Shia “Shi Shi”

Douglas, the younger sister of R&B singer Ashanti.

Tina Douglas, Ashanti

and Shia’s mother reaffirmed the pending legal action. “It is a

federal charge,” the mother Douglas told AllHipHop.com. “So now

they are going after that person. It wasn’t cool with Ashanti on the positive

side. Why would they involve her little sister. She is only 16 years old, under

age. They better cut it out because plan B was about to go to get my attorney

involved because she is a minor.”

"When it comes

to our attention, we go after whichever web site it is attributed to, but it

is difficult to track down," AP deputy managing editor/news Kristin Gazlay

told Editor and Publisher, America’s oldest journal that covers that newspaper

industry.

The fabricated news bit surfaced on the Knight Ridder/Tribune entertainment

wire as well as in The Miami Herald before editors noticed.

Knight Ridder/Tribune

removed the story from its wire once they found out, and ran a correction Tuesday

(Nov. 23), according to AP.

"It is not

unusual for people to doctor stories or completely concoct them,” Gazlay

said. “It is unusual for it to appear in print somewhere."

The story, falsely

accredited to AP entertainment writer Nekesa Moody, seemed authentic, Gazlay

said, but Moody has confirmed that she did not write it.

Kelly, currently

facing 14 counts of child pornography in Chicago, immediately cleared up the

false allegations through a press statement, and Ashanti phoned in to a New

York radio station to disprove the erroneous report.