20 years ago, when R. Kelly was first accused of sexual misconduct after a video of him with an alleged teenager was leaked to the public, Kelly was acquitted when the girl refused to testify in 2008. Yesterday, Kelly went on trial for a new slate of child porn charges, and this time, that original victim did testify for more than four hours, at last admitting that she was the girl on the tape — and that she was just 14 years old at the time.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the now-37-year-old woman — who remained anonymous, even as she testified — explained why she decided to testify, 14 years later. “I became exhausted with living with his lies,” she said.
Testifying under the name “Jane,” she detailed her alleged grooming by Kelly, as well as the sexual encounters she had with him beginning when she was 14, including intercourse when she was 15 and along with other teen girls. She also confirmed that he had urinated on her in the video that leaked in 2002. She says that on one of the tapes, he hands her money after having sex with her so “if anybody saw the tape or if it was released for some reason, he wanted it to appear as if I was a prostitute.”
She says when the original tape leaked, Kelly pressured her family to leave the country, sending them to the Bahamas and Mexico to keep them out of sight of the press — or the police. He had her cover a tattoo of his name and coached her to lie to grand jurors (she was granted immunity to testify in this trial). She said she complied “because I was afraid to expose Robert… I also did not want that person to be me. I was ashamed.” She recalled moving in with him in Olympia Fields, where he became more controlling and physically abusive until she moved out when she was 23 or 24.
Kelly is charged with 13 counts of production of child pornography, conspiracy to produce child pornography, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Authorities also want him to hand over $1.5 million — although that much seems unlikely, as his income has been severely curtailed in the wake of the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries. Such was the damage to his fortunes that his lawyers reportedly wanted to eliminate any jurors who might have seen it, claiming they’d be biased against him. A judge denied that request, and the trial will proceed today with a cross-examination of Jane, the prosecution’s star witness.
The other witness prosecutors called was a man who purchased a house that previously belonged to Kelly. He noted features of the house that could corroborate alleged victims’ testimonies about his controlling nature, such as a button he needed to press to leave the bedroom, and cameras installed in fake smoke detectors.