R. Kelly is said to have bid $1 million to obtain abuse video

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Musician R. Kelly 2019 in Chicago

Photo: Tannen Maury/EPA

In the new trial against the already convicted sex offender R. Kelly, a explosive witness has testified: The defendant's former merchandise officer alleges that Kelly promised him one million dollars in 2001 if he found a VHS tape on which the indictment says You can see Kelly abusing a 14-year-old girl.

The public prosecutor accuses Kelly of having bribed and threatened the person concerned at the time so that she would refrain from testifying in court.

He managed to find the video and returned it to the R&B singer, 52-year-old Charles Freeman said in a Chicago court.

However, he never received the full amount promised.

Reviewing the VHS, he saw "Robert Kelly having sex with a young lady," Freeman said.

Kelly is charged with, among other things, the production of child pornography.

In a previous trial in 2008, he is said to have threatened witnesses and withheld evidence.

When asked by the prosecution why it took him nearly two decades to turn over this and other R. Kelly-related footage to the police, Freeman said, "Because the police wouldn't have paid me a million dollars." However, it was years effort to get some of the money promised by Kelly, the witness said.

R. Kelly, 55, is already serving a 30-year sentence that a New York federal court sentenced him to in June on charges of human trafficking and racketeering.

If he is also convicted in the ongoing trial in Chicago, up to two years in prison could be added.

A woman who was allegedly abused by the singer when she was 14 declined to testify at the 2008 trial.

Kelly was acquitted.

In the ongoing process, however, the person concerned is working with law enforcement and has recently heavily burdened Kelly.

She said she had sex with the defendant hundreds of times over the years.

Carrying child porn around in a duffel bag

Kelly is said to have carried his self-recorded child pornography videos around in a duffel bag in the 1990s, the prosecution reported in a trial in 2008.

Nevertheless, some VHS were stolen.

When he received the cash in a Kansas City hotel in 2001, he immediately realized that it wasn't the promised amount.

"That's not a million dollars," he told Kelly's people.

He ended up going home with $75,000 in a paper bag.

After the video was handed over, he received further payments, but never the full amount.

He followed Kelly at concerts and threatened to make the matter public if the rest were not paid.

Witness Freeman will testify again Wednesday.

Then Kelly's defense attorneys have a chance to cross-examine him.

ala/AP