Troubled R&B star R. KELLY won't testify in his own defense as his child pornography trial winds to a close. After the defense team rested on Monday after quizzing 12 witnesses over two days, the jury was sent home early. The trial commenced in Chicago, Illinois on Tuesday with Judge Vincent Gaughan urging Kelly to reconsider his decision not to testify. But the R&B singer simply leaned forward and, uttering his first words during the two-week trial, said, "I decided not to testify." Prosecutors are scheduled to call two rebuttal witnesses on Tuesday. Closing arguments are expected to be delivered at the end of the week . Kelly is accused of videotaping himself having sex with a 13-year-old girl a decade ago. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, insisting the man in the video is not him. The underage girl, who is now 23, claims she is not the victim in the footage. This has been disputed by friends and family members of the unnamed female. Members of the jury will get the chance to have a second look at the sex tape once they begin deliberating after Kelly's defence team lost a bid to bar the jurors from reviewing the graphic video, insisting the viewing would sway the panel.
If R. Kelly doesn't go on the stand, I guess the court won't have bring in the expert translator from Willacoochie, GA to translate that slave speak accent of his.
They are flying through this trial. Is Ruh going down?
R. Kelly's younger brother, Carey Kelly gave an interview to The Wendy Williams Experience last Friday centering around parts of his family history and what he knows about R-uh and his um...habits. At first, I thought Carey may have been trying to ride the coattails of the R. Kelly scandal in order to boost his name and his career, but after listening to this interview, I think Carey is being genuine and is just a spectator in all of this mess just like the rest of us.
Here are the highlights:
R. Kelly's defense attorneys tried to assert that it was Carey Kelly and not his famous brother on the sex tape with the underage girl. After R. Kelly let his defense attorneys go along with pursuing the accusation and did not stand up for him, Carey became highly pissed.
When R. Kelly's mother was diagnosed with cancer and in the hospital, Kelly allowed his mother to stay within the county hospital which offered sub-standard care. When their mother died, she was buried with a cheap headstone. News which is surprising when you realize how much music Kelly has written regarding the great woman his mother was.
Carey Kelly's daughter was "stomped" by a group of teenage girls who were upset that her father spoke out against R. Kelly to the media.
Carey Kelly says that his brother Robert has extreme control issues in his professional and personal life and that can factor in his attraction to younger, controllable women.
R. Kelly is functionally illiterate. I believe that. Have you ever survived sitting through an interview he's given? Damn, I cannot find the most perfect example of this--when he gave an interview to BET's Ed Gordon following the release of the sex tape, I thought I tuned into Buckwheat guest hosting for Donnie Simpson on Video Soul.
Just offering a buffer on the R. Kelly drama for folks with terrible memories like myself.
Singer Sparkle, R. Kelly's former protege and backup singer identifies Kelly and the girl in the homemade sex tape as her niece who was underage at time yesterday in Chicago at the singer's trial.
R. Kelly's defense lawyer and Sparkle, whose real name is Stephanie Edwards, began shouting over one another during her cross-examination during the trial yesterday.
Before testifying, Edwards watched the videotape; during testimony she said she was sure her relative appeared on it having sex with Kelly.
"You know your blood ... you just know your family," she said.
Edwards, who was a background singer on one of Kelly's albums, testified that her relative was fond of Kelly and "took to him as a father figure."
Cross-examination of Edwards got heated, with the defense grilling her about a falling out she had with Kelly around 2000, two years after Kelly produced her debut album.
Defense attorney Ed Genson suggested Edwards — whose stage name is "Sparkle" — may have hatched a plot aimed at "getting Robert," referring to Kelly's given name.
Edwards replied with a raised voice: "Sweetie, I'm not trying to get money out of this."
"I'm not your sweetie!" Genson shouted into a courtroom microphone, the room booming. [Source]
Apparently, the alleged victim in the R. Kelly sex tape, the now 23 year-old Reshonda Landfair was in a singing group back in the mid-90's. (Only play if you want your ears assaulted.) [Via LSA]
I didn't know and I forgot half of this via the NY Post. It's long, but daaaaamn R. Kelly, you nasty bastid!
NY POST...Page Six
SHAMED singer R. Kelly has a long and sordid history of preying on underage girls, according to a story in GQ magazine.
Among the more disturbing allegations made by writer Jim DeRogatis:
* The 14-year-old girl who had kinky sex with Kelly four years ago in a widely bootlegged amateur porn tape is his "goddaughter" Reshonda Landfair, the daughter of Kelly’s guitarist.
* When Kelly was romancing his 15-year-old protégé Aaliyah in 1994, he took her to a suburban Chicago hotel room for a quickie marriage ceremony. Kelly used a phony marriage certificate that listed her age as 18 and the two were legally hitched. The union was later annulled, and Aaliyah was sworn to secrecy and waived all civil claims against Kelly.
* Childhood friends of Kelly tell GQ that he was sexually molested by a "trusted older man from the neighborhood," which may have contributed to his abusive behavior as an adult.
While Kelly’s appetite for young girls was an open secret, if a thief hadn’t stolen a videotape from his gym bag four years ago in Chicago, he might never have been arrested, because none of the underage girls he allegedly had sex with was willing to testify against him.
"The girls Kelly had seduced were more willing to settle than to testify," DeRogatis writes.
The "well-lit and crystal clear" stolen tape shows Landfair performing oral sex on Kelly. She also has intercourse with him and calls him "Daddy." (On Kelly’s next album, "Loveland," one funky dance track is titled "Come to Daddy.")
The Landfair family refused to cooperate with police, and then took a 2 1/2-month European vacation early this year, which led to speculation they’d been paid off.
Landfair’s aunt Stephanie Edwards - who recorded under the name Sparkle on a duet with Kelly called "Be Careful" - told GQ:
"There have been too many girls to count. His whole M.O. - he stated this to me not long ago - is he likes them when they are ripe and young because he can mold them into what he wants them to be and control their minds and make them do what women ‘should’ do. He needs to get some help. He needs to be stopped."
GQ reports Kelly settled lawsuits from two other teenage girls, and that two other cases are pending. Kelly faces 21 counts of child pornography, but authorities have been unable to indict him on the more serious charge of statutory rape without the cooperation of his victims.
R. Kelly Juror Quits Over Money Issues
A rape victim assigned to the jury in R. Kelly's child pornography trial has quit after just one day of work after learning her boss wouldn't pay her for the time she spent in court. Juror 68 asked to be excused shortly after opening statements were made in the case in Chicago, Illinois.
She told the court and her fellow jurors that judging Kelly would leave her homeless - because a loss of earnings would cause her to fall short on mortgage payments.
The unnamed woman, who told Judge Vincent Gaughan she would be able to put her own sexual experience behind her and offer fair judgment in the Kelly trial last week, has been replaced. [StarPulse]
What do all of these R. Kelly supporters outside his court appearance in Chicago have in common?
Apparently, her name is Angieniki Ford and the little wench is working overtime.
Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times, the journalist that was given the R. Kelly sex tape and turned it over to police before it became a bootleg phenomenon, speaks out about about the R. Kelly/young female fan base dynamic. Interesting.
R. Kelly Can Always Count On His Women
These fans are young, black -- and brainwashed
I can think of only one reason young black women would go down to 26th and California and rally around R&B singer R. Kelly.
Ignorance.
Although the women who rallied last Friday outside of the courthouse live in a metropolitan area, they are as ignorant about what constitutes appropriate sexual behavior as the women who were locked away on the polygamous compound in Eldorado, Texas.
Actually, I have more respect for the women from the polygamous compound.
At least the old men they are supporting are accused of marrying the underage girl -- not videotaping sexual acts that included urinating on girls.
But the African-American women who are publicly supporting Kelly and the white women from the compound have a lot in common.
Both have been brainwashed into thinking deviant sexual behavior is normal.
When I talked about the upcoming R. Kelly trial during a recent segment of "Chicago Speaks," a radio program I co-host on Sunday mornings, several black women defended Kelly and blamed the alleged victim, pointing out that today's 14-year-old girls are developed physically.
This flawed logic is repeated by at least one person whenever the R&B star is criticized for his alleged sexual misconduct.
Read the comments below the article at your own peril. My personal faves:
braidedgirl wrote: Society has been sh*ting on black women for centuries and you want to throw R Kelly in jail for some p*ss.
Leave Robert alone and let him perform his music. If the young girl they believe to be in that sexxx video is testifying for R Kelly and her parents didn’t bother to press charges??? What the h*ll do you have to say that makes any sense?
The media will only focus on the negative aspects of R Kelly’s career as if he never did any thing but make a p*ss video with some young girl. That’s why there is a gag order in place.
You’re nothing but another opportunist trying to increase your readership and circulation via R Kelly’s coattails.
5/14/2008 4:03 PM CDT on suntimes.com
nuky wrote: Ms. Mirchell who are you to determine if someone is guilty or not. And for the ignorance of the black your ladys that you so heartly seem to critize/label as ignorant has a right to their opinon and who they want to support.you have more respect for the polymygamous of the compound of (whites )but the right to support and protest if I am not mistaking in AMERICA you have the right to freedom of speach and support. (BLACK LIKE ME) but, not as ignorant as others. 5/14/2008 11:01 AM CDT on suntimes.com
See what Mary Mitchell means?
WHAT IN THE HELL is R. Kelly offering to the world that his obvious guilt (I'm just going to skip the "innocent until proven guilty" thing) should be ignored?!?!?!?!?!
R.Kelly fans (yes, they still exist) yelled at protesters outside the Cook County courthouse in Chicago this morning as the R&B singer arrived for a hearing to determine if a judge would grant another delay in the trial that has yet to take place even though the Kelly was arrested nearly six years ago on child pornography charges.
As it turns out, the judge ruled that jury selection may take place.
Next step: a May 16 hearing to decide whether to unseal court records.
Okay, so jackasses only become principled and rally in the streets only when their choices for the #1 video for the 106&Park countdown gets in jeopardy.
To the R. Kelly fans who are exercising their first amendment right to assembly on the steps of the Cook County, IL court house: Please go and play on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
Expect to hear this argument around the water cooler and in your places of worship:
For some reason, R. Kelly, who probably has the best legal team next to O.J. and T.I. (man, you've got to have initials to beat the charges) has managed to dodge a trial for ten years and some change. Finally, those fine folks in Chicago have finally brought a damn calendar:
R. Kelly's Pornography Trial Set To Begin In Chicago
CHICAGO — It seemed for a while as if R. Kelly's day in court might never come. But after six years of repeated delays, jury selection is set to begin Friday in the Grammy-winning R&B singer's trial on child pornography charges, prompted by a videotape allegedly showing Kelly having sex with a girl as young as 13.
Prosecutors, though, will have a unique challenge: The alleged victim, now 23, says it wasn't her. And Kelly's attorneys — including Ed Genson, who often represents the rich and famous — haven't admitted it's Kelly in the video.
