Is R Kelly Going to Get Investigated Again
5 Things to Know Near the R. Kelly Trial
For decades, Mr. Kelly has faced allegations of sexual abuse of women and girls. At present he is being tried on federal racketeering charges.
Afterward decades of accusations and investigations, the federal case confronting R. Kelly goes to trial Wed in Brooklyn — the starting time criminal trial that the singer has faced since he was acquitted on kid pornography charges in 2008.
For over two and a half decades, Mr. Kelly, 54, has been the focus of persistent accusations of sexual abuse of women and girls, including questions near his marriage to the singer Aaliyah when she was fifteen years quondam. Those allegations have grown louder in contempo years, culminating in a damning documentary series chosen "Surviving R. Kelly."
Now the R&B star, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, volition face up a sprawling racketeering case, among other charges. He has pleaded non guilty.
What are the charges?
Mr. Kelly is facing one charge of racketeering based on sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping and forced labor, and eight counts of violating the Isle of man Human activity, which prohibits transporting anyone across state lines for prostitution.
Mr. Kelly was initially arrested on these charges in July 2019, but his trial was delayed because of the pandemic and scheduling issues with cases he faces in other states.
Who will testify?
The trial will middle around six unnamed women. Prosecutors say the vocaliser physically abused and psychologically manipulated many of them and controlled many aspects of their lives, including when they could swallow and use the bathroom.
The racketeering charge Mr. Kelly faces allows prosecutors to bring upwards his matrimony to vocaliser Aaliyah.
In the 1990s, Aaliyah, whose full proper name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton, and Mr. Kelly were routinely working together; Mr. Kelly was the executive producer of her debut anthology, "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number," and fifty-fifty named information technology.
Prosecutors plan to argue that Mr. Kelly, who was 27 at the time, believed that Aaliyah became pregnant by him, and he and others in his cohort bribed an Illinois government employee to procure a faux ID for Aaliyah so they could become a marriage license that listed her as 18.
To substantiate the racketeering accuse, prosecutors will innovate allegations of other crimes that are not included in the indictment. They include accusations of sexual corruption and could involve up to xiv people, including a homo who prosecutors said will testify that when he was 17, Mr. Kelly pressured him to have sexual practice.
Mr. Kelly's defence force is likely to say that all accusers are "disgruntled groupies" who had consensual sex with him merely changed their stories out of regret or for money — an argument they have made in court filings.
Who are the jurors?
The anonymous 12-person jury — 7 men and five women — was seated concluding week and sworn in last Wednesday. Judge Ann M. Donnelly, who will preside over the trial at Federal District Court in Brooklyn, questioned prospective jurors over 3 days to estimate their sensation of Mr. Kelly and the accusations against him, their views and personal experience on matters of sexual misconduct and their opinion of the #MeToo movement.
The racial breakdown of the grouping remains unclear. Just several jury members shared details almost themselves and their experiences during the in-person selection.
The grouping includes a female parent of ii schoolhouse-aged children; a fraud investigator who said she is active in her church building; a woman with several incarcerated family unit members; and a man who works at a hotel.
Ane of the jurors, a longtime flight attendant, said he believes "trial by the media is worse than a trial by jury." The man told the guess that he has a friend in the family of Bill Cosby, whose 2022 conviction for sexual assail was recently overturned, merely that he did not question the jury'south verdict. He said he had heard only minor bits of information about R. Kelly in the news.
The trial is expected to last a month and will not be televised. The press and public will sentinel the trial from two overflow rooms in the courthouse.
What happened the last time?
Sexual abuse allegations against Mr. Kelly take been shared widely in the music manufacture for nearly three decades, but they became public at his 2008 trial in Chicago, which began half dozen years after he was indicted.
After seven and a one-half hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Mr. Kelly of child pornography charges. The trial had centered on a videotape that prosecutors said showed Mr. Kelly having sexual activity with a 14-twelvemonth-former girl. She refused to testify.
That trial excluded allegations made past other girls and their parents, who said Mr. Kelly used his fame to lure them into his sphere to have sex with them.
Why is this time different?
Dissimilar the 2008 trial, in which the prosecution's principal witness declined to testify, several of the women at the heart of the federal indictment in New York are expected to accept the stand.
Prosecutors are besides likely to be able to make a broader example confronting Mr. Kelly through the racketeering charge, a tactic that's besides been used in other high-profile trials, including the case confronting the leader of the Nxivm sex cult, Keith Raniere.
The rise of the #MeToo movement since the abort of Harvey Weinstein has inverse public perceptions near allegations of sexual assault, which are at present taken more than seriously.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/nyregion/sexual-misconduct-r-kelly.html
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