Former R. Kelly girlfriend testifies singer’s associate suggested they should’ve killed her over sex tape

An ex-girlfriend of R. Kelly sobbed in a federal courtroom Thursday after Kelly’s longtime business manager told her in 2007 that Kelly had sex with her and returned an abusive 14-year-old videotape. Instead of paying him for it, he should have been killed. -old girl.

Lisa Van Allen, 42, takes a witness stand on the ninth day of Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago, where the disgraced R&B star and two collaborators, Darrell McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, are accused of conspiring to pay and buy witnesses. There is an allegation. Back sex tapes to hide Kelly’s years of sexual misconduct.

Van Allen testified that in the late 1990s, he had sexual contact with Kelly and his minor granddaughter at the behest of the singer, who also filmed and directed their encounters. He said that when he took a tape and sent it to a friend in Kansas City, Kelly offered $250,000 to get it back, she said.

Near the end of her direct exam, Van Allen broke down in tears as she described how McDavid threatened her at an attorney’s office in Chicago after failing a polygraph test about the tapes.

“They said I failed (the test), and they should have defamed me from the start” – that is, they should have killed him.

Then, at McDavid’s behest, he made a false statement to a lawyer that he had never had any sexual contact with Kelly’s granddaughter, who had previously testified at trial under the pseudonym “Jane”.

“He told me to say this and I was afraid not to do what he asked,” she said, then wept, bowing her head, shaking her hand over her mouth. “I never knew they were thinking of killing me.”

Van Allen said she was upset by that comment, and told McDavid that she would tell Kelly about it. “He said Rob knew everything that was going on,” she said in an emotional tone.

At the defense table, McDavid pursed his lips and turned to Kelly, who was sitting behind him, and nodded his head gently.

In a vigorous cross-examination Thursday afternoon, Beau Brindley, a lawyer for McDavid, confronted Van Allen about his claim that he had been threatened, pointing out that McDavid was Kelly’s business manager and suggesting that It was all a lie.

“You had no reason to believe he was some kind of murderous accountant?” Brindley said.

Brindley asked why, if Van Allen’s goal was to prevent people from seeing the sex tape, he didn’t destroy it only after he stole it.

“I could if that thought had crossed my mind,” she said. She also refused to take the tape because she wanted to use it to extort Kelly for money.

In a preview of McDavid’s promised testimony at a later trial, Brindley alleges that there was no tape of Kelly having sex with Van Allen and Jane — instead, Van Allen actually did have sex with Kelly and his wife. Changed a tape of having a threesome. Van Allen vehemently denied this.

Brindley also suggested that Van Allen was a serial liar and manipulative.

“A person who pretends to have feelings while lying to try to manipulate others is someone you should trust?” Brindley asked. Van Allen said she didn’t know what he was talking about.

In past statements, Van Allen has consistently stated that she was 17 when she first met Kelly. On the witness’s stand on Thursday, however, she said that while she thought that was true at the time, she now recognizes that she was actually 18 years old.

Brindley accused him of lying about being underage to get attention.

“You wanted to be the victim!” They said. “Books to Sell!”

The allegation triggered an uproar of reactions and commentary in the courtroom. At the witness stand, Van Allen shook his head and rolled his eyes slightly.

Brindley repeatedly questioned Van Allen about discrepancies in statements made about the tapes over the years. At one point, when she began asking about her testimony for a federal grand jury in 2019, Van Allen started crying.

Brindley asked, sarcastically, whether there was “something particularly sad” about asking him about his grand jury testimony. “Yeah! I’m tired of asking you if I’ve seen child pornography!” she cried. Brindley scoffed.

At least twice, prosecutors objected to the interrogation, saying that Brindley was harassing the witness. And Judge Harry Leinenweber repeatedly told him to move things along more quickly.

To illustrate his point about Van Allen’s potentially inconsistent statements, Brindley displayed a clip from the documentary “Surviving Are Kelly” to jurors. And shortly after the clip ended, the screen remained frozen to an established shot—so Van Allen was testifying with the Chicago skyline in the background.

The jurors looked at much of Van Allen’s testimony, many of whom were taking notes and some were leaning forward in their seats, with notebooks on the bench in front of him.

Van Allen was a controversial witness in Kelly’s first criminal trial in Cook County 14 years ago, which ended with the singer’s acquittal. Like at the time, Van Allen was testifying on Thursday under an exemption from prosecutors.

Van Allen testified that she met Kelly’s granddaughter “Jane” in 1998. Jane must have been about 14 at the time, but Kelly told Van Allen she was 16, Van Allen said.

The three of them had three sexual encounters over the next three years, Van Allen testified, and Kelly filmed them all. Van Allen used his hands for the jury the same way Kelly set up the tripod and video camera.

At the beginning of his testimony. Van Allen was calm but somewhat nervous, turning around in her chair and stopping frequently to sip from a water bottle. When he began discussing sexual contact with young Jane, his face turned very sad.

During the second filmed threesome, in 1999, Van Allen started crying because she didn’t want to participate, she testified.

“(Kelly) said ‘What was he going to do with it?’ … I think ’cause it wouldn’t have been good footage to watch if I was there crying.

In 2000 an encounter was interrupted by Kelly’s team, Van Allen said. Kelly orders “Jane” to hide in the bathroom, she testifies, a request she did not make to Van Allen.

That same year, Jane told Van Allen that she would get a PT Cruiser for her 16th birthday. Van Allen was upset because she was under the impression that Jane was 16 two years earlier, during their first sexual encounter, she testified.

After that, Van Allen said, “I didn’t want to do any more trio. I didn’t want to do the first one, but I certainly didn’t want any more encounters. Because she was 14! She’s going to be 14.” was.”

Van Allen testified that Kelly would take his sex tape with him in a duffel bag. And at some point around the year 2000, she realized she was the only one with that bag, and went looking for any tapes she was on.

“I didn’t want it to be in their possession,” she said. “I didn’t want him to see them or keep them in his possession.”

Van Allen gave the tapes to his friend Keith Murrell, he testified.

She said that by 2007 she heard there might be copies of the tapes for sale, and she became concerned, she said. She didn’t want it there, and thought Kelly would help her get it back, she testified.

“She did an upcoming test for a similar tape, and it really said how old she was,” she said.

Van Allen meets Kelly at his Olympia Fields mansion, where Kelly meets with him in a hot tub before offering to give him $250,000 to get the tapes back. He also asked her to deal with McDavid “from this point forward,” she testified.

After that, he and Murrell brought back the tapes and took a series of polygraph tests, she said. He said he received some of the money from McDavid in return, and Van Allen was told he would get the rest after Kelly’s trial, she said.

McDavid told her that she had failed the third polygraph, she testified, remarking how they should have killed her.

Van Allen testified Thursday that she met Kelly in 1998, when she was 18 years old. He was introduced to her during a video shoot and began traveling to Chicago to meet him shortly after, he testified.

Soon after, she moved to Chicago outright and began a romantic relationship with Kelly, she testified. She said Kelly kept reminding her of her flights when she left, she said.

“I told him ‘I can’t remember my flights, I’ll be fired,'” she testified. “He asked me what I made and I told him. He ended up giving me only cash.”

She testified that Kelly would instruct her what to do and what to say during their sexual encounters, she testified, and often videotaped them having sex, especially when they had threesomes. Testified.

She said that Kelly did not allow her to talk or make eye contact with other men in her presence. If he “didn’t listen to daddy,” he would kill her.

Kelly, 55, is charged with 13 counts of production of child pornography, conspiracy to produce child pornography, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. According to the indictment, McDavid and Brown planned to buy back offensive sex tapes from Kelly’s archive and hide years of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.

Juries in the closely watched case have so far heard from 14 other witnesses, including Jane, who testified last week that Kelly videographed sexual encounters with her when she was 14, then coerced and eventually made her more Paid his family to keep quiet. Clips of three of these videos were shown to the jury on Friday.

This week has been dominated by another key prosecution witness, Charles Freeman, a Kansas City businessman who told the jury that Kelly and his associates charged him up to a million dollars in the early 2000s for hunting down other offensive videos. agreed to pay, before they could be. made public.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com