CHICAGO — A second R. Kelly accuser has taken the stand in his Chicago federal trial and testified the singer had sexual contact with her more than 80 times when she was underage.
The now-37-year-old woman, testifying under the pseudonym “Pauline,” was best friends with “Jane,” Kelly’s goddaughter. When she was about 14 years old she went looking for Jane at Kelly’s home and found her naked, kneeling in front of Kelly, she testified.
“He told me he was just looking for bruises on her, because she hurt herself,” she said. “I told him that ‘that’s not how you look for bruises’ and he said that’s how he looked for bruises ... then he stated that ‘we all have secrets.’”
Kelly directed her to have sexual contact with him and Jane, and the three began to have sexual interactions regularly — dozens or maybe hundreds of times when Pauline was age 14 to 16, she testified. Kelly would provide her with alcohol — specifically, Hypnotiq.
Pauline testified she also had threesomes with Kelly and another girl, “Brittany.” Kelly would video record the encounters — “he had tripods and cameras in the room” — and keep the tapes in a gym bag, she testified.
When Pauline was contacted by Chicago police in 2001, she identified Jane in a photo, but only because Pauline’s mother was in the room and also would have recognized Jane.
Later, testifying before a Cook County grand jury, Pauline also identified Jane. But she lied and said she had never seen Kelly have sexual contact with Jane, she said.
Pauline remained in a relationship with Kelly for years as an adult. When she was 20, she made a phone call to his studio posing as “Brittany” and asked for money.
“Well, he called it extortion, I called it ‘don’t play with me,’” she testified. She was just trying to get his attention since she hadn’t heard from him in a while, she said.
“Girls get mad and say stupid stuff and want to slap you or bust your car windows out. It was just a threat. He knew that. If he didn’t know that he wouldn’t have had me around all these years,” Pauline said.
Pauline still feels affection for Kelly, she said.
“I loved him and I still love him,” she testified. “ … In a weird way, I know you might judge me, but it’s like best friend meets boyfriend meets dad.”
Federal prosecutors could rest their case in chief against R. Kelly this week as the disgraced R&B singer’s trial moves into its second half.
Before the prosecution rests, jurors are expected to hear from more women who say Kelly sexually abused them when they were underage. The trial’s first week focused on “Jane,” who identified herself as the girl being sexually abused by Kelly in three separate videos from the 1990s.
One of those videos became the subject of Kelly’s 2008 Cook County trial, during which he was acquitted of child pornography charges — because, prosecutors now allege, Kelly and his associates went to great lengths to keep “Jane” quiet and recover other incriminating footage.
Witnesses last week largely focused on those efforts. Three people testified that Kelly’s team paid them to bring him videos of his homemade child pornography while he was awaiting his Cook County trial. Defense attorneys, during lengthy cross-examinations, have challenged their stories as inconsistent and tried to paint them as unreliable extortionists.
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 former Kelly associates Derrel McDavid and 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.
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