CHICAGO (CBS) – Opening statements were presented by the prosecution and defense Wednesday in the Chicago trial of R&B star R. Kelly accused of rigging his child pornography case in 2008.
It was a tough start to the opening as there was a 35-minute delay after a juror called about a medical issue and was replaced by an alternate. Two other jurors were also stuck on a train adding to the delay.
Prosecutors said Kelly had sex with multiple children – detailing four video tapes including an underaged girl by the name of “Jane” featured in each video.
“The defendant R. Kelly had sex with multiple children. He made video tapes of himself having sex with multiple children,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jason Julien told the jury.
Julien also said Kelly’s co-defendants, business manager Derrel McDavid and assistant Milton Brown knew all about it.
He said most of the world knew Kelly only as a popular R&B singer, but said he had “another side, a hidden side, a dark side, a side that he, McDavid and Brown did not allow the world to see.”
Julien said Kelly had sex with multiple girls between the ages of 13 and 16 from 1996 through 2001, often recording himself having sex with them.
Jurors will see three of those tapes during the trial, Julien said, but won’t see a fourth, because prosecutors said Kelly and his associates successfully covered it up.
Kelly kept those tapes close, because he knew he’d get in trouble if they came to light, and when one of the tapes went missing, Kelly, Brown, and McDavid went to extraordinary lengths to get it back, according to Julien.
The defense, however, questioned the authenticity of the fourth video, and if it even exists.
Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told the jury they’ll need to be brave because “this is a challenging case” with very few entering the trial with a blank slate.
Bonjean said while Kelly may have “stumbled along the way” on his journey from poverty to music stardom, she asked the jury to reject the prosecution’s attempts to portray him as a “serial child abuser” and a “monster,” and remember he’s a human being.
She also says Kelly deserves a non-biased jury and to consider every one of the 13 counts separately and determine if the government has met its burden for each one.
Kelly was reintroduced to the jury as a Grammy award-winning singer who went from being a high school dropout to singing in the subways to becoming a star.
“You’re not going to be asked if he’s a good or bad person…that’s for social media,” Bonjean said.
Jury selection for the trial wrapped up Tuesday. In all, jury selection took two days with a judge swearing in the jury Tuesday evening with 12 jurors and six alternates.
Kelly is facing a 13-count federal indictment including child pornography and obstruction of justice charges.
Federal prosecutors say he and his associates rigged his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County. Kelly, McDavid, and Brown are accused of bribing or otherwise intimidating witnesses including a teenage girl whom Kelly allegedly sexually assaulted on videotape. Kelly was acquitted at that 2008 trial.
This time around, that teenage girl, who is now in her 30s, is expected to be the star witness — testifying that those denials in 2008 were a lie and that she did have sex with Kelly as a minor.
Kelly is already sentenced to 30 years in prison for a federal sex trafficking case in New York. He would face a minimum of ten more years if convicted of the charges in his hometown of Chicago with the potential for decades more.
