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Brooklyn Trial: R. Kelly in the courtroom
Photo: JANE ROSENBERG / REUTERS
More than two decades after allegations of abuse against the former pop superstar R. Kelly first became public, a new and extensive trial against him began on Wednesday.
The 54-year-old is accused of sexual exploitation of minors, kidnapping and bribery in court in Brooklyn, New York.
If convicted on all points, the singer faces a prison sentence of ten years to life, a spokesman for the public prosecutor said on Tuesday evening.
Prosecutor Maria Cruz Melendez called Kelly in her opening speech, according to a BBC trial observer, a "predator," a term that is often used in the United States for sex offenders.
Melendez had further stated that Kelly was "a man who used lies, manipulation, threats and physical abuse to dominate his victims and for years to evade responsibility for them."
From them he had required absolute obedience, including permission to go to the toilet, it was said.
Kelly calmly followed the charges in a gray suit and purple tie.
TV cameras were not allowed in the courtroom.
According to the indictment, Kelly is said to have recruited adult women for decades, as well as minors and at least in one case also a boy for sexual intercourse, the British BBC summarized the allegations.
According to the US media, the allegations specifically relate to the abuse of five women, three of whom are minors.
He is also said to have tried to bribe an Illinois official in 1994 to issue fake papers for singer Aaliyah.
You should indicate that the then 15-year-old is already 18 years old so that the singer, who was 27 years old at the time, could marry her.
The marriage of the two was soon annulled.
Aaliyah died in a plane crash in 2001.
First prosecution witness testified
Jerhonda Pace, the prosecution's first witness, told jurors she was 16 years old and a member of Kelly's fan club when he invited her to his mansion in 2010.
Kelly told her there immediately to undress.
"He asked me to keep telling everyone that I was 19 and that I would act like I was 21," Pace said.
"That's good," Kelly replied when she revealed her virginity to him.
He wanted to "sexually train" her and ordered her to call him "Daddy."
Over the course of half a year, Kelly got more and more control over her, said Pace.
Violence broke out when Kelly's rules were violated.
"He beat me and choked me until I passed out," the witness said of an incident.
Then he spat in her face and forced her to have oral sex.
According to prosecutors, a T-shirt from Paces back then provided DNA evidence against Kelly.
"He didn't have to recruit them, they were fans"
The musician, who has been in prison since his arrest in summer 2019, has repeatedly denied all allegations and accused his critics of a character assassination campaign. Defense attorney Nicole Blank-Becker said on Wednesday, according to media reports, that Kelly and the accusers had initially "grown together like a family". "He didn't have to recruit them, they were fans." When the relationships deteriorated, the women became angry and were looking for revenge, according to Blank-Becker.
The process is said to take several weeks and up to 3500 pieces of evidence could be brought in.
Seven men and five women, whose names remain anonymous, decide as a jury on Kelly's case.
Regardless of the outcome of the New York trial, the singer has to answer in other trials in Illinois and Minnesota on similar counts.
In Chicago, federal investigators are also investigating his case.
The first allegations against Robert Sylvester Kelly, who was born in Chicago in 1967, were known about 25 years ago.
In 2008 he was on trial for possession of pictures of serious child sexual abuse and was acquitted.
wit / dpa / AP
