Sicko child sex tapes in R. Kelly trial played for jury
Three child sex tapes at the center of R. Kelly’s latest sex abuse trial were played for a jury in Chicago on Friday.
Federal prosecutors said the videos showed Kelly sexually assaulting a girl when she was as young as 14, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Kelly is already serving a 30-year sentence after he was convicted in Brooklyn federal court of using his fame to run a decades-long sex trafficking scheme.
The alleged victim in the Chicago trial, now 37 and testifying under the pseudonym Jane, spoke publicly about the years of abuse she suffered under Kelly for the first time on Thursday when her testimony began.
R. Kelly appears during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago, Sept. 17, 2019. (Antonio Perez/)
Special accommodations were made in the courtroom Friday so the jury could view the videos because of their graphic nature, according to the Tribune.
In one video, Jane referred to her “14-year-old” genitals multiple times. In another, the man told her, “Get on your knees” and Jane responded, “Daddy, do you still love me?”
The man in the videos repeatedly gave Jane directions.
Kelly’s defense attorneys have not contested that he is the man in the video, and they have not provided any version of events to counter the one Jane described on Thursday and Friday.
Jane explained to the jury that Kelly began grooming her shortly after they met when she was 13 years old. She said Kelly started groping her at age 14 and that by 15 he “started penetration.”
A sex tape with Jane was at the center of Kelly’s 2008 child pornography trial in Illinois. Jane did not testify at that trial, and Kelly was acquitted in part because jurors doubted she was the one in the video.
As recently as 2019, Jane defended Kelly and refused to cooperate with federal prosecutors, the Tribune reported. However, she changed her mind and decided to testify against him at the latest trial.
“The decision I was going to make was to cooperate with the authorities because I no longer wanted to carry his lies,” she testified Friday.
Prior to that decision, Jane had denied for years that she was the one in the video. Kelly’s defense team hammered that point, the Tribune reported.
At the federal trial in Chicago, Kelly is charged with four counts of enticing minors for sex, child pornography and obstruction of justice.
The obstruction of justice charge is tied to the 2008 child-porn trial. The feds say Kelly paid off Jane’s family with trips to the Bahamas and Mexico, then isolated her in hotels during the proceedings.
The enticing-minors-for-sex charges are tied to four other alleged victims, all of whom are expected to testify in the month-long trial.
