Testifying under the pseudonym Jane, the 37-year-old saw Kelly only once during her testimony when asked to be identified. Kelly kept his gaze on the defense table the entire time he was on the stand. Prosecutors showed several recordings in which Jane testified that Kelly was shown engaging in sexual activity with her. Sometimes Jane would cry during her time on the stand.
“How old were you when the sex acts depicted in those recordings happened?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Genis Appanteng.
“14,” Jane testified.
Jane testified that Kelly began engaging in sexual acts with her at the age of 14, and had had sex 15 “hundreds” of times by the time she was 18.
Jane is one of five minors whom prosecutors allege Kelly sexually abused in the late 1990s, and he made explicit videos with four of them. Kelly faces charges including making and obtaining child pornography, engaging in criminal sexual activity and obstructing minors. He has pleaded not guilty.
His co-defendants include Darrell McDavid, a former business manager and accountant for the singer, who faces charges of child pornography and obstruction. Kelly’s former assistant Milton “June” Brown faces a case of conspiracy to obtain child pornography. McDavid and Brown each pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Jennifer Bonzen, a lawyer for Kelly, questioned jurors during the opening statements Wednesday about why Jane is now coming forward and changing her testimony from two decades ago.
“For the past 22 years, she has strongly denied that she was in that video. Before there was any criminal investigation, she denied it. She denied it repeatedly to prosecutors, she denied social workers to police officers. Gave it. He denied it. Under oath of a grand jury,” Bonjeon said Wednesday.
At the witness stand Thursday, Jen said she was testifying under immunity because she lied under oath to the 2002 grand jury about her sexual relationship with Kelly and whether she was in explicit video recordings with him. appears.
“If I correct my mistakes by telling the truth, I will not be prosecuted,” Jane testified.
a family affair
As a young teen, Jen traveled the world with a Christian hip-hop group whose members were her cousins. Prosecutors asked not to name the group to protect his identity.
“I was living my dream,” Jane testified.
Her aunt, known professionally as Sparkle, worked with R. Kelly and had a romantic relationship with her. It was Sparkle who introduced Jane to Kelly when Jane was 12 or 13 years old, when a gospel concert was going on at her church, she testified. Weeks later, Kelly came to a concert for her group.
“He was telling me what a great job I had done,” testified Jane. “I felt successful. I felt happy.”
Shortly after meeting, Jen said that she started spending more time with Kelly and Sparkle. She would watch Kelly and Sparkle record music and talk with Kelly about basketball and music. Jane testified that she was 13 when Sparkle suggested that Jane should ask Kelly to play a bigger role in her life.
“He told me I should ask him to be my godfather.” Sparkle is expected to testify later in the trial.
Jen said that Kelly “smiled” and agreed to be her godfather, and within weeks, their relationship became sexual. Kelly spoke to her on the phone and asked “what color panties are you wearing” and “about my breasts growing” and “I need to wear a bra,” Jen testified.
When Kelly became her godfather, Jane testified that her parents felt comfortable letting her stay at their house for nights or weekends without her parents or aunt.
“They’ll pretty much leave me and then leave,” Jane testified.
recording of sexual acts
Jen testified that she was 14 when Kelly’s erotic comments became action. She said that Kelly began touching her breasts and vaginal area one night while they were in her recording studio. Touching, she testified, quickly turned to oral sex and other sexual acts, and she lost her virginity when she was 15.
Jane spoke softly as Apanteng asked her to describe an act depicted in a video.
“Which part of your body did he pee on?” Aptang asked.
“My vagina,” said Jane quietly.
Bonjean, and a lawyer for McDavid, have repeatedly objected to prosecutors accepting the recordings as evidence. They protested the authenticity of the videos and the chain of custody that has been transferred in the 20 years since the videos surfaced. Daniel Everett, a retired Chicago police detective who examined a tape in 2002, testified Thursday that he did not know where the original VHS tapes containing multiple recordings were.
“I don’t know where it is today,” Everett testified.
Jane testified that after the recordings were made, they were sometimes placed in gym bags, or in a wood-paneled room at Kelly’s former home, which she called the “log cabin” area. He testified that he had occasionally seen Brown carrying a bag full of recordings.
Prosecutors did not play the recordings in court on Thursday, but warned jurors during early statements that they would play parts of the video during the trial and that they were “difficult to watch.”
lying to the authorities
When the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services began an investigation into allegations that Kelly had sex with Jane in April 2000, when she was 15 years old, Jane testified that she denied the relationship. She also testified that she later denied to Chicago police investigators that she and Kelly had a sexual relationship.
Jen testified Thursday that she denied having sex with Kelly as her parents, but in 2002 after reports emerged about the existence of a tape that showed the pair engaging in sexual acts He said that Kelly, Jane and his parents had a meeting where Kelly admitted that he was having sex with their daughter.
Jane and her father received summons to testify before a grand jury in 2002. Jane testified that before appearing before the grand jury, she had a conversation with Kelly about “loyalty” and “denying our relationship and sex tapes.”
Jen testified that she lied to a grand jury in 2002 after she denied having sex and appearing in a sex video with the singer.
“And why were you untrue?” Aptang asked.
“Because I was afraid to expose Robert. Because I was afraid of what might happen to my parents. I didn’t even want that person to be me,” Jane testified.
Jen is expected to take the stand again on Friday.
(This story has not been edited by seemayo staff and is published from a rss feed)