R. Kelly is a sexual predator who parlayed his fame to abuse minors, a prosecutor stated Monday throughout closing arguments on the R&B star’s baby pornography and trial-fixing trial.
Addressing jurors in a courtroom in Chicago, Kelly’s hometown, Elizabeth Pozolo cited considered one of Kelly’s accusers who was the federal government’s star witness on the month-long trial.
Referring to the accuser by a pseudonym, “Jane,” Pozolo stated Kelly “took benefit of Jane’s youth. He repeatedly abused her. He carried out degrading acts upon her for his personal sick pleasure.”
She stated Kelly and his two co-defendants helped to get better baby pornography movies and hid proof earlier than Kelly’s 2008 trial, at which he was acquitted.
She stated they acted to cowl up the truth that “R. Kelly … the R&B famous person … is definitely a sexual predator.”
‘That secret was price $1 million’
Pozolo described in graphic element the video excerpts jurors noticed that she stated present Kelly abusing Jane whereas she calls him “daddy” and refers to herself as being 14 years outdated. She stated Kelly might be seen strolling as much as the digital camera to regulate it. Jane testified at trial that she was {the teenager} within the video.
“That abuse is without end memorialized,” Pozolo informed jurors, her voice rising. “Who does that? Who makes use of a 14-year-old baby to movie a video like this? This man. Robert Kelly.”
Earlier than Kelly’s 2008 trial, Pozolo stated Kelly and his associates scrambled to get better intercourse movies that had gone lacking from a group he typically carried round in a big fitness center bag. Extra tapes revealing Kelly as a sexual abuser might sink his profession and land him in but extra authorized hassle, so he was ready to make six- and seven-figure funds to get them again, Pozolo stated.
“The key that will break Kelly without end if it got here out,” she stated. “So sure, that secret was price $1 million.”
Earlier than the defence rested late Friday, Kelly co-defendant and ex-business supervisor Derrel McDavid testified that he had believed Kelly when he denied abusing minors — then stated he began having doubts about Kelly’s believability throughout the trial that began final month.
Kelly and McDavid are charged with fixing Kelly’s 2008 state baby pornography trial by threatening witnesses and concealing video proof.
Kelly already going through 30 years in jail
Jane didn’t testify in 2008, and jurors cited that as a motive they could not convict Kelly then. The present proceedings are in some methods a do-over of that trial. This time, Jane testified that she was the lady in that video and that Kelly had sexually abused her tons of of instances beginning when she was 14.
Kelly and McDavid additionally face baby pornography fees. One other co-defendant, Kelly affiliate Milton Brown, is accused of receiving baby pornography.
McDavid was the one one who testified on his personal behalf.
Kelly, 55, is already going through 30 years in jail after a separate federal trial in New York in June.
Identified for his smash hit I Imagine I Can Fly and for sex-infused songs resembling Bump n’ Grind, Kelly bought tens of millions of albums even after allegations of sexual misconduct started circulating within the Nineties. Widespread outrage emerged after the #MeToo reckoning and the 2019 docuseries Surviving R. Kelly.