NEW YORK — Indicted R&B star R. Kelly’s long-awaited racketeering trial may be proceeding 800 miles from his hometown, but Chicago was very much in the forefront as opening statements got under way on Wednesday.
In outlining their evidence for a federal jury in Brooklyn, prosecutors described the hotel in suburban Rosemont where Kelly married underage Aaliyah in the 1990s, the old Rock n’ Roll McDonald’s in River North where he allegedly tried to pick up a teenager, and the studio on Chicago’s West Side that was the site of many of his alleged abuses.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez said in her opening statement that the trial against Kelly — a onetime giant of the music industry who got his start busking at Chicago L stations — was about a predator who used his fame to entice girls, boys and young women before dominating and controlling them physically, sexually and psychologically.
“This case is not about a celebrity who likes to party a lot,” Melendez told the jury of seven men and five women as she explained the evidence to be revealed in the coming weeks. “This case is about a predator.”
Kelly’s attorney, meanwhile, portrayed her client as a victim of women, some of whom enjoyed the “notoriety of being able to tell their friends that they were with a superstar.”
“He didn’t recruit them. They were fans. They came to Mr. Kelly,” attorney Nicole Blank Becker said, urging jurors to closely scrutinize the testimony. “They knew exactly what they were getting into. It was no secret Mr. Kelly had multiple girlfriends. He was quite transparent.”
The opening statements were the first volleys in a criminal trial that centers on a racketeering law more commonly used for mob bosses, cartel kingpins and leaders of street gangs.
The racketeering indictment first filed in 2019 alleged an extraordinarily broad range of crimes, all pointing to a coordinated effort to supply Kelly with boys, girls and women, who allegedly abused and kept them under his control.
According to the charges, Kelly and members of his entourage enforced a complex set of rules governing everything from the way victims could dress to when they could go to the bathroom.
But Becker told the jury Wednesday that the government was overreaching in calling Kelly the kingpin of a criminal operation. And the government’s witnesses, she said, will take the stand only to lie and embellish their stories out of spite or to further an agenda.
“There will be so many untruths told to you that even the government will not be able to untangle the web of lies,” she said. “… (witnesses will) tell you all these negative things, they’re going to form a picture that basically Mr. Kelly is this monster.”
Becker said “some of these relationships that Mr. Kelly had were beautiful.” And many of the “rules” that prosecutors alleged Kelly forced his accusers to follow have benign explanations, she said.
The women wore baggy clothes because they didn’t want to attract harassment at Kelly’s concerts, and they urinated in cups not because they were denied permission to use the bathroom but because they were often on long tour trips in a van without a restroom, Becker said.
“Pee in a cup? Yeah, you might hear that,” she said. “It’s not illegal, ladies and gentlemen.”
Prosecutors, however, said Kelly had a longstanding practice of inviting children and women to join him after shows by distributing backstage passes. Once he had them alone, Melendez said, he “dominated and controlled them physically, sexually and psychologically.”
The prosecutor said Kelly would often record sex acts with minors as he controlled a racketeering enterprise of individuals who were loyal and devoted to him, eager to “fulfill each and everyone one of the defendant’s wishes and demands.”
“What his success and popularity brought him was access, access to girls, boys and young women,” she said.
After breaking for lunch, opening statements were continuing Wednesday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly.
Throughout the morning’s proceedings, Kelly, 54, sat silently at the defense table, stone-faced except for an occasional, barely perceptible frown.
The overflow room for press was crammed with reporters, who watched the live-streamed proceedings on television monitors. Across the hall was a similar room for spectators, including family members of Joycelyn Savage, who have long alleged Kelly abused their daughter and held her under his control.
The trial was expected to bring a bit of a circus atmosphere to the typically staid federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where other high-profile defendants such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman have recently faced a jury.
Things remained orderly before court began Wednesday, with media beginning to line up outside the courthouse before 7 a.m. A handful of supporters joined a short time later, waiting in line for spots in one of two overflow courtrooms, where spectators can watch a video feed of the trial.
Reporters and spectators wait in line outside Brooklyn Federal court for opening statements in R&B star R. Kelly's long-anticipated federal trial arising from years of allegations that he sexually abused women and girls, Aug. 18, 2021, in New York. (Mary Altaffer / AP/AP)
In a small nearby park, owners walked dogs while several amateur boxers got some exercise.
The highly anticipated trial comes 13 years after Kelly last faced a criminal court jury. In the years leading up to his last trial, Kelly toured nationally and sold countless records. The day of the verdict in 2008, he bowed his head, praised Jesus, and walked out of a Cook County courtroom acquitted of child pornography charges.
But according to federal prosecutors, he continued the same alleged pattern of sexual molestation, physical abuse and psychological control that he had been perpetuating for years: A criminal enterprise operating just under the surface of his music empire.
Kelly faces a drastically different landscape since his earlier acquittal. His music was boycotted across the country; his alleged abuses have been the target of in-depth investigative journalism and a popular Lifetime docuseries; he has been in federal pretrial custody for more than two years; and he has pending cases in four different jurisdictions across the country.
Kelly’s lead attorney, Thomas Farinella, tweeted Tuesday night that “the public has only heard one side of the story” and he and his team looked forward to attacking the case against Kelly in court.
“After all, the RICO ‘Enterprise’ is based on a series of independent relationships and events that the government is trying to patch together like different types of fabrics and trying to pass it off as silk,” Farinella wrote.
A jury of seven men, five women and six alternates was selected last week. They are being identified by number rather than name, and they will be escorted to and from the courtroom in a “partial sequestration” due to the high-profile nature of the case and allegations of jury tampering at Kelly’s 2008 trial.
R. Kelly's attorney Nicole Becker is surrounded by reporters as she arrives at Brooklyn Federal court for opening statements in the R&B star's long-anticipated federal trial on Aug. 18, 2021, in New York. (Mary Altaffer / AP/AP)
Among the members of the panel: A male supervisor for an undisclosed city department who likes playing soccer and pingpong; a female fraud investigator and active churchgoer; a male transportation manager who watches Formula One racing in his spare time; a female cook for a local hospital with three children; and a male hotel guest services assistant who also dabbles in filmmaking.
One juror, a male flight attendant for the past 18 years, said during questioning last week that he has a friend who is a relative of Bill Cosby and followed the comedian’s criminal sexual abuse trial. The juror said nothing about that high-profile case would affect his ability to be fair in judging the evidence against Kelly.
Many of the members of jury acknowledged they’d heard of Kelly and bits and pieces of the allegations, but all promised to put what they’d heard aside. One man on the jury said at first he thought the defendant was R. Crumb, the popular American cartoonist.
They are expected to hear about Kelly’s rushed marriage to singer Aaliyah in suburban Rosemont when she was underage. Many of Kelly’s accusers are slated to take the stand, including Azriel Clary, who lived at Kelly’s Trump Tower apartment until early 2020 and alleges myriad abuses at Kelly’s hands.
The trial is expected to several last weeks. If convicted on all counts, Kelly could face from 10 years to up to life in prison, according to prosecutors.
And either way, after his New York proceedings have concluded, he still faces a federal indictment in Chicago on allegations he conspired with two former employees to rig his 2008 Cook County trial by paying off witnesses and victims to change their stories. And he has four pending cases in Cook County, alleging sexual abuse and assault. Kelly also has been charged in Minnesota with solicitation.
The Associated Press contributed. Megan Crepeau reported from New York and Jason Meisner from Chicago.
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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