Article Author:
Associated Press
Michael Term
CHICAGO (AP) — R. Kelly's legal team will get a chance to question government star witnesses on Friday. Kelly's testimony at federal court in Chicago on charges involving producing child pornography.
Jane was the pseudonym used during the trial and has been at the center of Kelly's legal troubles for over 20 years. She testified for more than four hours on Thursday, telling jurors that it was a videotape of her and Kelly that was at the center of the 2008 child pornography trial, and that he was acquitted.
Jane, now 37, stopped, tugged at her necklace and dabbed her eyes with a tissue to find out that the girl in the video was herself and the man was Kelly.
When the prosecutor asked Jane how old she was at the time the video was taken, she quietly replied, "14." Kelly, 55, would have been about 30 at the time.
Kelly faces child pornography and soliciting charges, as well as conspiracy to rig a 2008 trial.
Some jurors who presided over the 2008 trial said they had no choice but to acquit R&B Starr. On Thursday's stand, Jane admitted to lying to a state grand jury in 2002, saying she wasn't the one in the video. I was afraid something bad would happen to Robert," she told jurors about why she didn't tell the truth at the time, calling Kelly by his full name.
She added that she had another reason for lying about the identity of the person in the video. "I was ashamed."
Wearing a white dress coat and removing her face mask before testifying, Jane spent more than four hours on the witness stand for the government. rice field. Kelly's attorneys were scheduled to get a chance to cross-examine Jane starting Friday morning.
Prosecutors asked Jane late Thursday why she had come to be honest about what had happened to Kelly.
I'm tired of living with his lies," she replied. She added that federal prosecutors ensured she would not be prosecuted for lying to authorities if she testified honestly at this trial. Jane also became emotional when asked to explain why she sees the money handed over. She said it was a precaution against anyone accusing him of child abuse should the video end up in the hands of authorities.
"If someone sees the tape... I wanted it to look like I was a whore," said Jane.
She states that her parents confronted Kelly in her early 2000s over whether she was having sex with her daughter. Kelly knelt down and begged her parents for forgiveness, Jane testified. She later pleaded with her parents not to do anything to embarrass Kelly, saying that she loved him.
While she spoke, Kelly mostly stared at the defensive table and rarely looked up at her. She rarely looked in his direction either.
Previously, she testified that Kelly had been sexually abused "hundreds of times" since she was 15, before she was 18. time.
Jane told her jury that in the late 1990s, when she was 13, she asked the Grammy Award-winning singer to be her godfather. said.
She said she would get a call from Kelly in a few weeks and she would say something sexual. She told jurors she was 15 when they first had sex. "He'll tell me what to do," Jane replied. …hundreds.
A federal judge in New York has sentenced Kelly, who was convicted in 2021 of using his fame to sexually abuse a fan, to 30 years in prison this year. handed over.
When Jane first ran for office Thursday, she spoke softly and tentatively, explaining that she grew up in a musical family outside Chicago. she was about 12 years old.
The first time Jane met Kelly was in her late 1990s when she was in middle school. She tagged along to Kelly's Chicago recording studio with her aunt, a professional singer who worked with Kelly. Shortly after that meeting, Jane told her parents that Kelly would be her godfather. knew that a conviction in 2008 would effectively end his life, so prosecutors say Kelly conspired to get it right. trial.
Kelly has been plagued with complaints and accusations about his sexual behavior for decades.The #MeToo era and his 2019 six-part documentary Surviving R. Kelly. After that, scrutiny intensified.
Kelly also faces four counts of his sexually seducing a minor in a Chicago trial. They are also expected to testify.
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