Cook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan granted alleged musician R. Kelly permission to attend this month’s Grammy awards in a decision handed down this week, on the condition that Kelly avoid all contact with fellow age-of-consent-impaired hit factory Michael Jackson during the ceremony. Though unexpected, legal experts are applauding the judge’s decision as a deft move likely to quell public fears that the two might swap child-molesting secrets backstage at the awards ceremony.

Kelly, nominated for two Grammies for his double-platinum album that’s actually titled “Chocolate Factory,” is awaiting trial on child pornography charges stemming from a 2002 video that allegedly shows the R&B singer engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl. A spokesperson from Kelly’s record label was unable to confirm if the video in question was for a cut off Kelly’s new album, or if it was one of several previous music videos showing the singer engaging in sexual acts with 14-year-old girls.

While many have applauded Judge Gaughan’s move, some have called it unnecessary considering that Jackson isn’t nominated for any Grammies this year and will likely only show his face if he can sneak it through the bomb-detecting machines at event security. Gaughan, however, defends the efforts to prevent his own personal vision of hell from coming true.

“Because I feel that it’s in the best public interest for Mr. Kelly to be able to attend this ceremony, I won’t deprive the world of the soulful beats and funky grooves of his child-fucking music,” explained Gaughan. “From ‘Freak You Weekly’ to ‘Stained Retainer,’ Kelly has long captured the essence of lusting after the unattainable, not-quite-ripe fruit. However, there’s something very wrong about imagining Kelly hanging out with a ripe fruit like Michael Jackson, and I won’t have that on my watch. Especially after I’ve just eaten. Likely or not, America can’t afford to see the two of them together at the Grammies, the Oscars, or even at a Yankees game this summer. And God forbid I see pictures of those two parasailing in Cancun on some kind of child molester double-date vacation at some point in the future. Yuck-o-rama.”

Scandal first found Kelly in 1994, when he produced Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, the debut album of 15-year-old R&B sensation Aaliyah, which featured a joke title that would only become funny years later. That same year Kelly and Aaliyah secretly wed, then hastily annulled after Aaliyah’s parents Naaaomben and Shizbitch Haughton forbade Kelly from getting his statutory freak on with their high-school student daughter while they were home.

Apparently emboldened by his brush with infamy, Kelly got his lawsuit on dozens of times during the second half of the decade, settling out of court on charges of allegedly impregnating a 16-year-old, coercing a 15-year-old into participating in an underage girl orgy, and abusing his responsibilities as a Girl Scout troop leader. No sooner were these suits settled than dozens more 14-year-old girls came out of the woodwork, including a Chicago-area 9th-grade health class that claimed Kelly had impersonated their teacher and sexed up the entire class one afternoon in 1996.

Despite the numerous allegations, Kelly’s career showed no ill effects, with the singer scoring two number one hits in 1999 with “Shit, This is Gettin’ Expensive” and “Girl You’re a Woman to Me.”

However in February 2002, elephant shit hit the fan when the Chicago Sun-Times reported it had found a videotape showing Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and copies of the tape in question were quickly sold as bootlegs and on the Internet. Despite the claims of authenticity in the Sun-Times promotional materials, there was some initial public question as to whether the man on the tape was really Kelly, whether the girl really was underage, and whether the action was truly “all-anal” or merely the product of deceptive camera angles. Police later confirmed the authenticity of the tape after investigating the Sun-Times’ exorbitant shipping charges.

Singer Jackson recently pleaded innocent to seven counts of performing lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent, then went on some weird rant about how he calls wine “Jesus Juice” and kids should be able to drink juice.