In 2008, a Chicago jury found R. Kelly not guilty of creating images depicting child sexual abuse after watching a videotape that the prosecution said showed the R&B singer engaged in sex acts with a minor. The defense team had claimed that the identity of the persons on the recording was in doubt, and some jurors felt strongly that Mr. Kelly's innocence could not have been established without the victim's evidence.
But on Thursday, the woman at the center of the 2008 trial took the witness stand, identifying herself and Mr. Kelly as the people in the infamous video, confessing that they had had sex "hundreds" of times when she was underage, and describing how he had convinced her to lie about their relationship to law enforcement officials two decades earlier.
She started assisting detectives in recent years.
In response to Mr. Kelly's attorney's cross-examination on Friday, the lady stated, "I no longer wanted to bear his falsehoods."
Since more than 20 years ago, Mr. Kelly has been the subject of allegations of mistreating young women and minor girls, but he has for the most part avoided prosecution. That is, until last year, when he was found guilty in a federal court in Brooklyn of racketeering and sex trafficking and received a 30-year prison sentence.
The only time Mr. Kelly had come close to being held accountable before then was during the 2008 trial.
The defendant in that trial, who is now 37, testified on the witness stand at the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in downtown Chicago. She claimed that Mr. Kelly had repeatedly molested her when she was a teenager and that she was the person depicted on the videotape at the age of 14 when he is seen peeing on her.
The lady, who spoke to the court for more than four hours on Thursday while using a pseudonym, claimed that Mr. Kelly moved her and her parents out of the country in 2002 to hide them from investigators after they had gotten the recording. Then, according to her, he encouraged her to tell a grand jury that it wasn't her on the recording and paid for a lawyer to go with her. She admitted that she had lied to the grand jury by claiming that she wasn't on the footage and that she wasn't having a sexual relationship with Mr. Kelly. She said that she signed a confidentiality agreement that the singer offered her and provided Mr. Kelly's attorneys a necklace of hers that was shown in the footage.
She explained that she had to sign the contract "if I wanted to demonstrate my dedication."
Mr. Kelly, who is accused of forcing youngsters into sex, obtaining tapes of child sexual abuse, and plotting to obstruct prosecution, showed no reaction as the lady talked.
The lady testified before the jury that M. Kelly was initially exposed to her when she was 13 years old by her aunt, an M. Kelly protegee known professionally as Sparkle. She said that Mr. Kelly, who ended up being her godfather, first began to speak sexually to her over the phone before beginning to physically abuse her. She stated that Mr. Kelly would harass her sexually at his house, in the recording studio, and even on his tour bus.
The audio came to light after Jim DeRogatis, a reporter for The Chicago Sun-Times who had covered the allegations against Mr. Kelly, received it in the mail from an unidentified sender and sent it to the police. Mr. Kelly was accused of creating child pornography in 2002. He was put on trial in 2008 but was found not guilty.
The lady said that she was living with Mr. Kelly in his mansion at the time of the trial and that after he was exonerated, he started physically assaulting her and restricting her freedom to leave. Later, she claimed, he assisted her with getting a car and moving into her own apartment.
On Friday, Mr. Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, attempted to discredit her evidence during cross-examination by requesting information from the witness on an immunity agreement she had with the prosecution and the potential for requesting repayment. The lady confirmed that she had received immunity from prosecution for perjury relating to the false grand jury testimony in 2002 in exchange for her testimony from the prosecution. She said that she wasn't sure if she would approach Mr. Kelly for restitution, which would include receiving the money to help make up for what she had gone through.
According to the prosecution, they currently have more proof of the woman's mistreatment than state prosecutors did 14 years ago. Unlike the 2008 trial, which centered on a single film, the present trial is centered on four tapes, all of which, according to the prosecution, depicts Mr. Kelly sexually assaulting the lady. Both the allegations against Mr. Kelly for receiving child pornography and those connected to manufacturing child pornography against him are based on those recordings.
According to the government indictment, Mr. Kelly and his friends discovered that there were missing videotapes showing him assaulting the lady in 2001. As a result, they started a multiyear search for the recordings and paid one individual hundred of thousands of dollars to attempt to get their hands on them.
Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, two of Mr. Kelly's accomplices who are being prosecuted concurrently with him, are accused of trying to locate the recordings that were missing. Both men entered a plea of not guilty, and their attorneys contend that while they were doing their duties, they were not aware that Mr. Kelly was assaulting minors.
Four more women are anticipated to testify later on in the trial that Mr. Kelly molested them as girls.
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