On the fifth day of R. Kelly’s sex-trafficking trial, a witness who accused the R&B star of sexually abusing her in 2015 when she was an aspiring teen singer returned to the stand, telling the jury that Kelly forced her to have sex with another man and trained her to defend him in public, even when her defense “wasn’t always truthful.”
It seems that she is one of the six witnesses against Kelly; based on court documents and the prosecutors’ opening statement, she is Jane Doe #5.
The witness, 23, was one of two women living with Kelly in his condo in the Chicago Trump Tower until the end of 2019. She later made an appearance with CBS anchor Gayle King as one of Kelly’s live-in girlfriends.
During the interview, Kelly became enraged and dissolved into hysterics, screaming and crying while under King’s questioning about the sexual abuse allegations raised against him in the TV docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”
According to the witness, they had to rehearse answering questions about Kelly to defend him better. Prosecutors asked if she was truthful during the interview with King.
“I was not,” she said, adding that Kelly was in the room during her interview with King.
“He did a cough to let us know he was near,” she said. “He was letting us know he was in the room with us.”
While on the stand, the witness testified that Kelly was “abusive.” She said she never talked about it publicly and hasn’t had any contact with him since January 2020.
According to the witness, Kelly punished her for multiple reasons. She stated that Kelly forced her to have sex with a man he called “Nephew” and recorded it on an iPad.
She said, “He wanted me to please Nephew the same way I pleased him.”
The prosecutors asked if she wanted to have sexual contact with Nephew? and she responded, “Never,” They asked, Why did you? “It was punishment,” she said.
During day 4 of the trial (Monday), the witness said that Kelly made her have sex with him in exchange for an audition. Initially, the witness said she told Kelly she was 18 but was actually only 17.
When testifying that she contracted herpes from Kelly, she cried. She said he didn’t disclose to her that he had a sexually transmitted disease.
“This man purposely gave me something he knew he had,” she said. Kelly is accused of purposefully infecting some of his victims with a sexually transmitted disease.
According to the witness, she met R. Kelly during his Black Panties tour. She later testified that in 2017 he recorded their sexual sessions and forced her to get an abortion.
The witness then testified to Kelly’s mistreatment of her, saying he allegedly used a shoe to beat her for texting a friend, then smacked her across her face after she told him she was underage.
After Defense Attorney Deveraux Cannick cross-examined the witness, she indicated that she moved in with Kelly in 2015 when she was still a junior in high school.
“There was a time where … a time he slapped me open palm,” she said. After that, Kelly sent her home. When asked if she told her parents what happened, she said, “I did not, no.”
One time in Orlando, when she allegedly had sex with Kelly, she said the police had come into the room and asked her age, and she told them she was 18. Cannick then asked if she had told police that Kelly had “violated” her, and she responded no.
The witness was then asked how often she had seen Kelly, and she said that he would frequently fly her to meet him in California. “I did, yes,” she said. How soon? “Most likely the next weekend,” she said.
After prosecutors produced a letter given as evidence, the witness said she recalled a time when she had wonderful memories of Kelly. “I used to happily wait” on Kelly at home after he finished meetings. “We carved our initials into the table,” she recalled. But she couldn’t recall when she wrote the letter, whether it was before or after the January 2019 premiere of “Surviving R. Kelly.”
During the testimony, the witness was asked a series of questions that she claims she couldn’t remember or that her answers contradicted what she told prosecutors in pre-trial interviews.
The witness also claimed that when she met Kelly, her mother was so eager to introduce her daughter to the singer that she texted him pretending to be the teen.
Kelly, 54, has been subjected to several accusations of sex trafficking and racketeering over decades, involving six women. Jane Doe #5 is one of those to testify.
Another complaining witness and the first Kelly accuser (who has already revealed her story in public), Jerhonda Johnson Pace, stated she had sex with the singer when she was 16. However, she initially told him that she was 19 and above the age of consent.
Pace testified that she had to ask Kelly for permission to use the bathroom and that Kelly would videotape their regular sex sessions and later show the videos to her to point out areas where she could “improve.” She claimed she “ended up contracting herpes” while she was with Kelly in 2009.
Kris McGrath, Kelly’s primary care physician, claimed under oath that he had been Kelly’s physician for 25 years until 2019. Kelly was diagnosed with genital herpes, according to McGrath, who informed the singer and encouraged him to disclose to his sexual partners. He said he had been prescribing Valtrex to Kelly since at least 2007.
Demetrius Smith, Kelly’s longtime assistant, and tour manager testified under oath and was granted immunity from prosecution that he assisted Kelly in his illegal 1994 marriage to the late singer Aaliyah, who was 15 at the time.
The prosecution has named six women in its sex-trafficking and racketeering accusations against Kelly.
The authorities accuse Kelly of directing “a criminal enterprise” of managers, bodyguards, and other personnel who reportedly assisted Kelly in recruiting women and young girls for sex and pornography and crossing state lines to do so.
According to the two-year-old indictment, he’s also charged with bribery, kidnapping, forced labor, producing child pornography, and purposefully infecting some victims with a sexually transmitted disease.
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