R&B star, R. Kelly, 41, was charged
with child pornography six years ago, but the trial has been delayed for this
period. Tuesday, the Grammy-winning R&B artist stood in front of the prosecutors
at the Cook County Criminal Court, where they played the 26-minute sex tape at
a tiny monitor showing what authorities claim is the R&B singer engaged in
sex acts with a minor.
“You will see the sex acts he commands her
to do,” lead prosecutor Shauna Boliker told the panel before showing the
footage, quoted by E!Online. “Acts you have never seen before. Vile, disturbing
and disgusting sex acts, actions that were choreographed, produced and starred
in by Robert Kelly.”
Authorities say the video was recorded
sometime between January 1998 and November 2000, when the girl was 12 or 13.
The defense lawyers denied Kelly was in the
video. They say that a mole on Kelly’s back will prove he is not the man in the
video. The person whom prosecutors say is on the tape claims it wasn’t her. The
accusation was he allegedly videotaped himself having sex with a woman and with
a girl who, according to prosecutors, could be as young as 13. She is now in
her 20s.
“Robert Kelly is not on that tape,” Kelly
counsel Sam Adam Jr. told jurors. “I stand before you…to tell you [the alleged
victim] is not on the tape.”
The attorney also told jurors no one knows
how the tape came into being, or if the original videotape still exists. Adam
said the tape “is a copy of a copy of a copy.”
Kelly has pleaded not guilty. If convicted,
he could face as long as 15 years in prison.
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