CHICAGO — Fallen R&B star R. Kelly, once revered as a product of the city’s South Side, was found by a jury to have made three videos of himself sexually abusing his 14-year-old granddaughter. was convicted of child sex crimes on Wednesday.
Kelly, 55, is already serving a 30-year prison sentence after a Brooklyn jury found him guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking charges last year. over thirty years. A conviction in Chicago could add years to that prison sentence.
The 12-person juror in the trial here found 13 cases brought against him, including three cases of coercing a minor to have sex and three cases of making a sex tape involving a minor. It convicted Kelly on six of the charges. But in a bit of a setback for prosecutors, he was acquitted of his two other charges of attempting to obstruct an earlier investigation into abuse of an underage girl and of driving a minor into sexual activity. became.
After the ruling was read out, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John R. Rausch Jr. said: .
A federal trial in Chicago echoed a 2008 state trial in Illinois, where a jury acquitted Kelly of child sexual abuse charges. That trial focused on the same 14-year-old girl, and a videotape prosecutors said showed Kelly sexually abusing her and urinating on her. Several jurors told reporters that they were affected by the lack of testimony from a young woman who denied to the grand jury that she was the person in the video.
But the trial, which began in August at the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in downtown Chicago, saw a woman take the stand and reveal herself to be the girl in the video while the singer lied to a grand jury. He testified that he persuaded him to come. The prosecutor showed jurors clips of that video and two of her other videos. Those were what they described as footage of Mr. Kelly sexually abusing underage women. They then presented evidence paid to the woman and her family over the years, claiming the money was meant to silence them about her abuse.
Three other women testified at the trial that they were sexually abused by Mr. Kelly when they were minors. A fifth accuser, who was expected to testify, never showed up.
Kelly also did not testify at the trial, leaving the defense to attorney Jennifer Bonjean. He claimed her client was being prosecuted in a rush to sentencing caused by the #MeToo movement. She described him as “a victim of extortion and financial exploitation”.
But over the weeks of the trial, prosecutors portrayed Mr. Kelly as a series of sexual predators and recruited many associates to cover up his crimes.Charles Freeman, a key witness for the prosecution. said he received a phone call from Mr. Kelly in 2001 asking for help in retrieving “stolen tapes.” Freeman said he received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Kelly and his business over the years.
“Robert Kelly abused many girls over the years,” Elizabeth Pozzolo, one of the prosecutors, told jurors in closing statements. “He committed horrific crimes against children.” committed, and he didn’t do it alone.”
Prosecutors alleged that Kelly’s accomplices included two former employees, both of whom were tried alongside Kelly, but were acquitted of all charges. Former business manager Derell McDavid has been acquitted of charges he arranged to pay people who tried to retrieve the missing videos.
Another former employee, Milton Brown, was accused of conspiring to recover child sexual abuse imagery as part of an effort to protect Mr. Kelly, but the jury dropped the charges. Mr. Brown was also acquitted of the charges.
Both men’s attorneys argued that they were simply doing their job as directed by Mr. Kelly and had no reason to believe that the tapes sought to be retrieved involved an underage girl. (And Ms. Bonjean claimed the tapes depicted only consenting adults.)
But when Mr. McDavid stood up to testify in his own defense, he broke with his former boss while claiming he was ignorant of the sexual abuse of minors.
“In the last three weeks, I have learned many things that I never would have thought of in 2008,” he testified. “Standing here today, I feel ashamed and sad.”
Kelly’s defense team sought to cast doubt on the credibility of the women who testified against Kelly, depicting financial and self-protection motives. Ms Bonjean said she now has an immunity agreement with prosecutors to protect her from perjury charges related to a woman at the center of a 2008 trial who lied to a grand jury at the time. emphasized the facts.
Bonjean, who has represented other high-profile sexual abuse accusations, including Bill Cosby, delved into the inconsistencies in the accusers’ accounts and, if jurors found the witnesses unreliable for details, He argued that it was a sufficient suspicion.
“If you find a cockroach in your soup, you don’t just pull the cockroach out, you throw out the whole soup,” Bonjean said in his closing statement. “There are too many cockroaches in the testimony of many of these eyewitnesses.”
For example, one of the accusers, who testified that she was 16 when she first had sexual contact with Mr. Kelly, said in an earlier lawsuit that she was actually 17. pointed out. Kelly was acquitted of the charge.
After the verdict was read out, Bonjean told reporters he planned to appeal.
“Mr. Kelly is used to bad news,” she said.
Each child sexual abuse imagery carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. Prosecutors have said they will seek to add Kelly’s sentence to Brooklyn’s.
Next, Kelly faces state indictments in Illinois and Minnesota unless prosecutors drop the case following a second federal conviction.
A courtroom scene during his trial shows how much the former R&B star has changed over the past 14 years. In 2008, Mr. Kelly’s supporters arranged for the children I get on the bus Wear a Free R. Kelly T-shirt to court. When he was acquitted in the case, he walked out of the courtroom and received a big round of applause.
Support was muted during this trial period. About a dozen fans gathered at the courthouse each day, and during the hearing, a man set up speakers and blared “Step in the Name of Love” and other Kelly’s hits.
An important development for the prosecutors who won the conviction was the decision to testify in the case by a woman who was at the center of the 2008 trial. She decided to cooperate with investigators in 2019 — months after the lifelong documentary series Surviving R. Kelly aired sexual abuse allegations against the singer.
The defense repeatedly challenged her why it took her so long to cooperate.