Singer R. Kelly sentenced to 30 years in prison 2:26
(CNN) --
R. Kelly was placed on suicide watch at the federal detention center in New York where he is being held after being sentenced this week to 30 years in prison on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, his attorney said this week. Friday.
However, attorney Jennifer Bonjean told CNN that she believes the R&B singer is not suicidal, adding that Kelly was afraid he would be placed under such surveillance.
"The irony of putting someone on suicide watch when they're not suicidal is that it actually causes more harm," Bonjean said.
R. Kelly, 55, was placed on suicide watch because he is so well known, Bonjean said he was told by prosecutors who spoke with prison officials.
CNN has reached out to prosecutors and the Bureau of Prisons for confirmation of him.
Timeline of the case against R. Kelly: extortion, sex trafficking and a 30-year prison sentence
"It's a punishment for being high-profile. And frankly, it's horrible," he said.
"Putting someone on suicide watch in those conditions is cruel and unusual when they don't need it."
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Bonjean had asked Kelly to email him after he was returned to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn following his sentencing on Wednesday, but never received a message from him, he said.
He didn't get answers from the detention center about his status until prosecutors requested information from the facility, Bonjean added.
A jury convicted Kelly last September of nine counts, including one count of racketeering and eight counts of violations of the Mann Act, a sex trafficking law.
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York charged Kelly with using her celebrity status and a "network of people at her beck and call to target girls, boys and young women for her own sexual gratification."
The five-week federal trial in Brooklyn included testimony from people who said R. Kelly sexually and physically abused them.
The court also heard from people involved in orchestrating the R&B singer's 1994 marriage to the late singer Aaliyah when she was just 15 and he was an adult after she believed she had become pregnant.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Kelly to more than 25 years behind bars, while his defense attorneys asked for 10 or fewer.
