CHICAGO — The continued cross-examination of a key witness against R. Kelly got off to an extraordinarily contentious and emotional start Friday. Within 15 minutes, the exchange had grown so argumentative and circular that the judge intervened, and within about 20 minutes the witness had broken down in tears.
Lisa Van Allen, 42, acknowledged at the start she was “exhausted” and did not want to come to court that day. She had been on the stand for about five hours Thursday and testified that back in the late 1990s, she had sexual contact with Kelly and his underage goddaughter “Jane” at the behest of the singer, who also filmed and directed their encounters. After she took one of the tapes and sent it to a friend in Kansas City, Kelly and his associates offered her $250,000 to get it back, she said.
Friday morning, Kelly attorney Jennifer Bonjean repeatedly noted that Van Allen had for years said she first met Kelly when she was 17, but at this trial acknowledged she was 18. Authorities had informed her that the music video shoot where they met was filmed after her 18th birthday.
“It’s just simple math,” Bonjean said. “... You must have done the math.”
“Why would I do all that math when I’m trying to tell the truth?” Van Allen said, growing frustrated. “... When I testified against him it wasn’t for me. It was about Jane.”
Bonjean noted that Jane was underage when Van Allen admittedly had sexual contact with her and Kelly: “You’re here testifying for her? This is the person you sexually abused?”
At that, Van Allen broke down sobbing.
“I’m not proud of that. I don’t know what woman would be proud of that,” she said through tears. “But I am here to admit to my wrongdoings and to hold him accountable for what he’s done, so you can sit here and try to make me the bad guy all you want.”
Van Allen had also grown emotional near the end of her direct examination Thursday, when she described how Kelly’s associate, co-defendant Derrel McDavid, threatened her at a lawyer’s office in Chicago after she had failed a polygraph test about the tape.
“He said that I failed (the test), and that they should have murked me from the beginning” — that is, they should have killed her, she testified.
In a bombastic cross-examination, McDavid’s attorney Beau Brindley strongly disputed that characterization — pointing out that McDavid was Kelly’s business manager and suggesting it was all a lie.
“You didn’t have any reason to believe that he was some sort of murderous accountant, did you?” Brindley asked.
Brindley asked why, if Van Allen’s goal was to keep people from seeing the sex tape, she didn’t just destroy it after she stole it.
“I could’ve if that thought had crossed my mind,” she said. She also denied taking the tape because she wanted to use it to extort Kelly for money.
Kelly, 55, is charged with 13 counts of production of child pornography, conspiracy to produce child pornography and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Also on trial are McDavid and another associate, Milton “June” Brown, who, according to the indictment, schemed to buy back incriminating sex tapes that had been taken from Kelly’s collection and hide years of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
Jurors in the closely watched case have so far heard from 14 other witnesses, including Jane, who testified last week Kelly videotaped sexual encounters with her when she was just 14, then pressured and ultimately paid off her and her family to remain silent. Clips from three of those videos were shown to the jury last week.
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