Singer R. Kelly was convicted on several counts of child pornography, this Wednesday (14), in a federal trial in Chicago, in the United States.
Kelly was found guilty of three out of four counts of producing child pornography and three out of five counts of grooming a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity.
He was acquitted on one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to receive child pornography, as well as two counts of receiving child pornography.
Jennifer Bonjean, Kelly’s attorney, said her client felt a “sense of relief” that this case was left behind, and felt that prosecutors had overdone the case against him. Bonjean further stated that she is considering filing an appeal.
“If this jury found him guilty on the first three counts, would they care enough to consider the evidence for the rest? And they showed that they did. They did their job. They looked at each charge separately,” Bonjean exposed out of court after the verdict.
In June, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a New York federal court on racketeering and prostitution charges. That trial amplified charges that had already dogged the singer of the Grammy-winning hit “I Believe I Can Fly” for two decades.
Jurors deliberated for about ten hours after hearing three weeks of testimony. These include the accounts of a woman who anonymously testified that Kelly sexually abused her when she was just 14 years old and recorded the intercourse.
The woman was one of five minors that prosecutors allege Kelly sexually abused in the late 1990s by making explicit videos with four of them.
Two former Kelly employees were acquitted
Kelly’s co-defendants, Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown, were acquitted of all charges they faced.
McDavid, Kelly’s former accountant and business manager, was charged with conspiracy to receive child pornography and obstruction of justice. Brown, Kelly’s former assistant, was charged only with conspiracy to receive child pornography. Both pleaded not guilty.
Vadim Glozman and Beau Brindley, attorneys for McDavid, praised the verdict in a statement to CNN .
“The jury found what we knew all along. The government has brought up a case that should never have been made. It was based on the word of proven liars,” the lawyers said. “We exposed them in front of the jury and the jury made the right decision.”
THE CNN contacted Kelly and Brown’s attorneys for placement.
Victim testified about sexual abuse
One of the witnesses in the trial, a 37-year-old woman, spoke in federal court under the pseudonym Jane and testified that Kelly began engaging in sexual acts with her when she was 14 and had sex with her from the age of 15. They had sex “hundreds” of times before she turned 18.
Jane testified that she met Kelly through her aunt, Sparkle, who worked and had a romantic relationship with him. She was 12 or 13 years old when she met the singer.
At the time, Jane traveled the world with a Christian hip-hop group whose members were her cousins. Prosecutors asked her not to name the group to protect her identity.
Shortly after they met, Jane said she started spending more time with Kelly and Sparkle. She would watch them record songs and talk basketball with Kelly. Jane testified that she was 13 years old when Sparkle suggested that she should ask Kelly to play a bigger role in her life.
The victim testified that the singer became her best man, at which point her parents felt comfortable letting her spend the night or even the weekend at their house, without the presence of guardians.
“They practically left me and then left,” he said. She was 14 when her relationship with Kelly turned sexual and that she lost her virginity to him when she was 15.
When the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services began investigating an allegation that Kelly was having a sexual relationship with Jane in April 2000, when she was 15, she testified and denied the case.
He still denied to Chicago police investigators sexual intercourse.
Jane, her parents and Kelly met for a meeting when reports began to surface in 2002 of a tape showing the couple engaged in sexual acts. She said Kelly admitted to them that she was having a sexual relationship with her daughter.
She and her father received subpoenas to testify before a grand jury in 2002. However, before testifying, she had a conversation with Kelly about “loyalty” and “denying our relationship and the sex tape.” Jane revealed that she lied on occasion when she denied having a sexual relationship and appearing in the videos.
(*With information from Reuters)
Source: CNN Brasil
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