CHICAGO (AP) — Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday at R. Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago after presenting two weeks of evidence and testimony in their effort to show that the singer enticed underage girls for sex, produced child pornography and efficiently rigged his 2008 state trial.
Among the many final prosecution witnesses was a 42-year-old girl who glided by the pseudonym “Nia.” She was the fourth accuser to testify towards the Grammy Award-winning singer on the trial in Kelly’s hometown.
The spotlight of prosecutors’ case was testimony by a 37-year-old girl who used the pseudonym “Jane” and described Kelly sexually abusing her hundreds of times beginning in 1998 when she was 14 and Kelly was round 30.
Jane’s testimony is significant to the cost accusing Kelly of fixing his 2008 youngster pornography trial, at which he was acquitted. She testified that Kelly and his associates threatened and paid off her and her mother and father in order that they lied to a grand jury earlier than the trial.
Kelly’s authorized staff now will get its probability to assault the federal government’s case. His attorneys haven’t stated whether or not Kelly will testify. Kelly, 55, didn’t testify at his earlier federal trial in New York, where a judge sentenced him in June to 30 years in prison for convictions on racketeering and intercourse trafficking prices. A conviction in Chicago might add years to that sentence.
Closing arguments within the federal trial in Chicago are anticipated subsequent week.
Kelly’s 2008 state trial revolved round a video prosecutors stated confirmed him sexually abusing Jane. She didn’t testify at that trial, however informed jurors this month that she was the kid within the video and Kelly was the grownup man.
Kelly bought hundreds of thousands of albums even after allegations about his abuse of younger women began circulating publicly in the 1990s. Widespread outrage over his sexual misconduct didn’t emerge till after the #MeToo reckoning and the 2019 docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”
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