The teenage girl allegedly seen in the sex tape with R. Kelly that led to child pornography charges against the singer in 2008, took the witness stand in his latest trial Thursday and said Kelly had sex with her “hundreds” of times before she turned 18.
Now 37, the woman told a federal prosecutor she was 14 years old when the tape was recorded, according to the Associated Press. Kelly was about 30 at the time.
The woman was identified by the pseudonym “Jane” when she took the witness stand. She testified for the prosecution and remained on the stand for four hours.
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Kelly was acquitted in his 2008 state trial after the woman refused to testify. On Thursday, she admitted she lied to a state grand jury when she said it was not her on the videotape.
“I was afraid something bad would happen to Robert,” she said about the singer whose birth name is Robert Sylvester Kelly. “I was protecting him.”
The woman added that she was humiliated when the tape went public in 2002, with bootleg copies sold around Chicago.
“I also did not want that person to be me,” she said. “I was ashamed.”
A prosecutor asked her why she finally decided to discuss what happened. “I became exhausted living with his lies,” she answered, adding that federal prosecutors told her she would not be charged for lying in the singer’s previous trial.
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R. Kelly is being tried on charges of child pornography, enticement of minors, and conspiring to rig the 2008 trial by intimidating and paying off the girl to prevent her from testifying.
This latest trial in Chicago federal court comes 11 months after Kelly was convicted in New York on federal racketeering and sex trafficking counts. He was sentenced in that case to 30 years in prison.
The singer’s manager Derrel McDavid and his personal assistant Milton “June” Brown are co-defendants in this latest trial. McDavid is accused of helping Kelly obstruct justice in the 2008 trial, and Brown is charged with receiving child pornography. All three have pleaded not guilty.
