R. Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago, which begins Monday, is in many respects a re-enactment of his 2008 state child pornography trial, in which jurors acquitted the singer on accusations that he created a film of himself having sex with a girl no older than 14 when he was approximately 30.
There is one major difference: prosecutors claim she will testify this time.
Kelly arrives in Chicago federal court having previously been sentenced to 30 years in prison by a New York federal judge for a 2021 conviction on allegations that he used his celebrity to sexually assault other underage devotees.
Among the most severe accusations facing the Grammy Award winner at his federal trial is conspiracy to obstruct justice by manipulating the 2008 trial, which included paying off and intimidating the girl to ensure she did not testify.
The testimony of the lady, now in her 30s and referred to only as “Minor 1” in court records, will be crucial. Kelly is also charged with four counts of enticing minors for sex – one count for each of the four other allegations. All are expected to testify.
Even a single conviction in Chicago might add decades to Kelly’s sentence in New York, which he is appealing. Kelly will be approaching 80 before becoming eligible for early release under the New York sentence alone.
Prosecutors want to show the identical VHS video that was “Exhibit No. 1” in the 2008 trial during the federal trial. Unlike 14 years ago, when it was the sole video in evidence, at least three additional films will be used in the federal trial.
Prosecutors claim Kelly took the video of Minor 1 between 1998 and 2000 in a log cabin-themed room at his North Side Chicago home when she was as young as 13. The girl is heard calling the guy “daddy” in it. According to federal authorities, she and Kelly had sex hundreds of times in his houses, recording studios, and tour buses throughout the years.
Kelly carried a duffel bag full of sex videos wherever he went for years before the 2008 trial, although some tapes eventually went missing, according to court records. In the 2000s, bootleg versions of several videos began to surface on street corners around the United States.
Kelly, who ascended from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a great singer, songwriter, and producer, was well aware that a 2008 conviction would basically terminate his life as he knew it.
Kelly dropped his head and closed his eyes as jurors returned from deliberations on June 13, 2008. As a court official announced the jury’s verdict and it became evident Kelly would be acquitted on all charges, tears flowed down his face and he cried, “Thank you, Jesus,” again and over.
Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, two Kelly colleagues, are co-defendants in Chicago. McDavid is suspected of assisting Kelly in rigging the 2008 trial, while Brown is accused of obtaining child pornography. They, like Kelly, have denied any misconduct.
Double jeopardy laws prohibit prosecuting someone for the same offences for which they were previously acquitted. However, it should not apply to the federal trial in Chicago since prosecutors are claiming a variety of offenses linked to Minor 1, including obstruction of justice for rigging the 2008 trial.
Minor 1 first met Kelly while she was in junior high school in the late 1990s. She’d accompanied Kelly to her Chicago recording studio with her aunt, a professional vocalist who worked with Kelly’s songs. Minor 1 informed her parents shortly after that encounter that Kelly would be her godfather.
The aunt sent the parents a copy of a film she said revealed their daughter having sex with Kelly in the early 2000s. When they approached Kelly, he told them, “You’re either with me or against me,” according to a federal document.
It was seen as a threat by the parents.
“Minor 1’s mother did not want to challenge Kelly’s power, money, and influence by not doing what he said,” according to the complaint.
Kelly informed the parents and Minor 1 that they had to leave Chicago and that she would pay for their trips to the Bahamas and Cancun, Mexico. When they returned, prosecutors claim Kelly tried to isolate Minor 1, sending her to several hotels.
When Minor 1 was summoned before a state grand jury investigating the video, her father and mother denied she was in it. Prosecutors claim that a counsel for Kelly sat in on their testimony and relayed what they said to Kelly.
Prosecutors from the Cook County state’s attorney’s office elected to press charges and go to trial in 2008, despite what they recognized was a substantial hurdle: their inability to summon the girl in the video to testify.
Any hope Kelly had of fighting identical charges a second time was certainly lost when he discovered Minor 1 was now working with the authorities. Federal prosecutors, who have greater resources, have conviction rates of more over 90%, compared to roughly 65% for their state counterparts.
His attorneys maintained in 2008 that the individual in the VHS footage who looked to be Kelly was not Kelly. They showed jurors a big mole on Kelly’s back, then played video snippets in which no mole was apparent on the guy.
During closing arguments, one of Kelly’s lawyers, Sam Adam Jr., told jurors that the absence of a mole on the man’s back indicated only one thing: “It’s not him. And you can’t convict if it’s not him.”
After the trial, several 2008 jurors told reporters that they weren’t persuaded the girl on the video was who state prosecutors said she was.
That shouldn’t be a problem in the federal trial in Chicago. According to prosecutors, both the girl and her parents will testify.
It’s unclear what defense Kelly’s legal team will provide this time.
The defense will almost certainly claim that Kelly’s accusers are distorting the facts. Kelly was blunter regarding the women in a 2019 interview with Gayle King of “CBS This Morning,” stating, “All of them are liars.”