An indictment of R. Kelly broke down in tears on Monday when he testified at the federal layout trial of the disgraced R&B star. Using a pseudonym to testify anonymously, the woman cried while claiming she contracted herpes during her relationship with the singer and that she believes Kelly has consciously exposed her.
New York federal prosecutors have accused Kelly of exploiting a criminal network of sex trafficking consisting of her administrators, bodyguards, drivers, aides and others who recruited women and underage women at concert venues where she performed and elsewhere. Once Kelly had the prosecutors alone, she “dominated and controlled them physically, sexually, and psychologically,” Maria Cruz Melendez, an assistant attorney for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said during the opening statements of the trial in a Brooklyn courtroom.
Kelly has pleaded guilty to all charges against him and has firmly maintained his innocence, including in a explosive 2019 interview with “CBS This Morning” co-presenter Gayle King. His defense attorneys have criticized the alleged machinist company as an extension by prosecutors, saying in a court case the women sought Kelly’s attention and years later have “group remorse”. Kelly’s lawyer, Nicole Blank Becker, said Wednesday that the relationship was consensual and said the women enjoyed the “notoriety of being able to tell their friends they were with a superstar.”
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The plaintiff testified Monday that he met Kelly in April 2015, when he was 17, during a concert he attended with his parents. He said a member of Kelly’s entourage gave him a doll to approach the stage and they gave him a note with Kelly’s contact information. The woman, who said she was a music artist and wanted Kelly to criticize her work, contacted Kelly via FaceTime and then met him at a hotel. The woman said they engaged in sexual activities after Kelly “continually tried to get her peers to pressure her” to have sex before she criticized her music.
The woman, who said she told Kelly she was 18, said she had no romantic interest in him.
“I just wanted to sing,” he said. “I really wanted his input.”
The woman then said that after her first meeting, Kelly’s assistant arranged for her trip to California, Las Vegas, Georgia, Chicago and Connecticut. The woman alleged that she had sexual contact with Kelly almost every day for the next few months.
During her testimony, the woman felt overwhelmed with emotion as she described that she was experiencing pain in her pelvis and abdomen which, she claimed, was becoming so severe that she could hardly walk. He said he was diagnosed with vaginal herpes and that when he reported Kelly, he was “agitated” and replied that anyone could have given him. The woman said Kelly never told her she had a sexually transmitted disease and that she felt “devastated” because, as Kelly claimed, “she intentionally gave me something I knew I had, that I could have controlled. “.
The woman said that while she was with Kelly, she was instructed to wear loose clothing and be called a “father,” reinforcing the prosecution’s case that Kelly enforced strict rules for the women he abused.
The woman said she would sometimes stay on Kelly’s tour bus, where she needed her permission to get out of the toilet after using it. He said Kelly physically abused her when she broke her “rules,” claiming the singer hit her with sneakers at her Atlanta home until she admitted she had sent a text message to a friend of hers. institute with details about their relationship. In another incident in Chicago, she said Kelly punished her for buying clothes she considered too small forcing her to stay in a room for three or four days until she admitted she should have bought bigger clothes. The woman said the door to the room was unlocked, but said that if she tried to leave “she would have more problems”.
Prosecutors alleged that Kelly confined the prosecutors against her will, which only allowed them to leave with their permission.
The woman testified that she witnessed Kelly slapping, hitting and dragging other women by the hair in her home if they violated her rules. She said she had sex with other women at Kelly’s request because she knew Kelly would punish her if she refused. Kelly, he said, forced her and other women who lived with him to write fake letters claiming they had stolen him and that they had been abused by their own families. Prosecutors argue that Kelly used letters and videos of sexual encounters as a means to control women and keep them quiet about abuse.
The woman said the sexual encounters, which she said she frequently filmed Kelly, left her “humiliated.” She also recounted a case in which she claimed that Kelly once pressured her to have sex while a member of her entourage slept in the same room with them in Las Vegas.
According to her testimony, the woman told Kelly in the summer of 2015 that she was actually 17 years old. He alleged that Kelly punched him in the face with his open palm when he told her and that he instructed her to return to her home state. Florida while consulting his lawyers. She stated that she later suggested that she be taught at home and live with him in Chicago. He said he received written permission from his parents to stay with him and that they then continued the sexual relationship.
The woman was thrilled when she said Kelly impregnated her in 2017, when she was 18 years old. She said she did not want to terminate the pregnancy, but said she was forced to have an abortion and that one of Kelly’s assistants accompanied her to the procedure. .
The woman ‘s testimony follows the account of another accuser last week who said Kelly physically and sexually abused her during a relationship that began when she was a 16-year-old fan in 2009.
Known for her 1996 song “I Believe I Can Fly” and for other notable hits, Kelly has faced sexual abuse allegations for years, which she has denied. He was acquitted in 2008 on child pornography charges after a key witness failed to testify. Several women later filed charges of abuse in the 2019 lifelong docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” which sparked public outcry over the allegations in the midst of the It was #MeToo. The singer was charged with federal sex offenses in New York and Chicago the same year.
Kelly, 54, also has pending criminal cases Minnesota i Illinois. He pleaded guilty. Her modeling charge includes underlying allegations of child sexual exploitation, bribery, kidnapping, forced labor and violations of the Mann Act, which criminalizes the transportation of women and girls for any “immoral purpose.” He faces up to ten years in life in prison if convicted in the New York case.
Erica Brown and The Associated Press provided reports.