The federal racketeering trial of R. Kelly — in which the singer is accused of being the head of a criminal enterprise that for decades used his celebrated musical talents to not only sell records, but also to abuse and enslave girls, produce child pornography and satisfy Kelly’s personal sexual urges — began Aug. 18 in Brooklyn after multiple delays. He has pleaded not guilty.
Since cameras are not allowed in the courtroom, here’s a look at the key players in the trial, which could last for a month or more.
Judge Ann M. Donnelly
United States District Court, Eastern District of New York
From leading prosecution of former Tyco International executive L. Dennis Kozlowski to blocking an executive order by former President Donald Trump targeting people from seven predominantly Muslim counties for detainment, colleagues call Donnelly “steadfast in the face of high-profile cases that gained national attention,” the New York Times reported in 2017.
Donnelly was nominated by then-President Barack Obama to the seat vacated by Sandra L. Townes on Jan. 7, 2015. She was confirmed by the Senate by a 95-2 vote on Oct. 20, 2015 and received her commission on Oct. 21, 2015.
Prior to that, Donnelly worked for decades in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The Royal Oak, Mich. native received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and law degree from Ohio State University.
Donnelly has barred the press and the public from watching the Kelly trial in her courtroom, citing coronavirus concerns.
The accused
R. Kelly (Robert Sylvester Kelly)
R&B singer
Kelly, 54, who has been held without bond since his arrest on the federal charges since 2019, is charged with racketeering conspiracy in U.S. District Court in New York alleging he identified underage girls attending his concerts and groomed them for later sexual abuse.
Kelly is also charged in a federal indictment in Chicago with conspiring with two former employees — longtime manager Derrel McDavid and former employee Milton “June” Brown — to rig his 2008 child pornography trial in Cook County by paying off witnesses and victims to change their stories.
The singer is charged in four separate indictments in Cook County alleging he sexually assaulted or abused four women, three of whom were underage at the time.
Additional charges are pending in Minnesota, alleging Kelly solicited a teenager who asked for his autograph in 2001.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In this courtroom artist's sketch made from a video screen monitor of a Brooklyn courtroom, defendant R. Kelly, left, listens during the opening day of his trial, Aug. 18, 2021 in New York. (Elizabeth Williams/AP) (Elizabeth Williams/AP)
Prosecutors
To prove the main racketeering count — which is commonly referred to by the acronym RICO — prosecutors plan to put on evidence that goes back 30 years to when Kelly was rocketing from Chicago street musician to worldwide fame. As his career blossomed, prosecutors say, so did the enterprise, which allegedly used a mix of co-conspirators to recruit girls for Kelly and help keep them under his control.
In all, prosecutors plan to introduce evidence involving at least 18 women — including at least seven who were minors at the time of the alleged misconduct — as well as additional allegations that Kelly sexually abused a 17-year-old boy he met at a McDonald’s.
Elizabeth Geddes
Assistant U.S. attorney
A magistrate judge denied Kelly bail in 2019 after Geddes argued the singer and his inner circle had a history of paying off and intimidating potential witnesses in past sexual misconduct cases.
Geddes has been an an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York for 14 years, according to her Linkedin profile. She is chief of its Criminal Civil Rights Section and also serves as a liaison to the newly formed Civil Rights Team. She was presented the J. Michael Bradford Memorial Award in 2015 for her outstanding performance “resulting in the near complete dismantlement of the Colombo crime family.”
She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1997 and Georgetown University Law Center magna cum laude in 2004.
Maria Cruz Melendez
Assistant U.S. attorney
Melendez delivered opening statements for the prosecution on Aug. 18, saying Kelly “began collecting girls and women like they were things, hoarding them like objects.”
Melendez became deputy chief of the Criminal Civil Rights Section of the Eastern District of New York in April. She also serves as deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section and has worked in the office for nine years. Previously, she was an associate in the White Collar Criminal Defense Group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, according to her Linkedin profile.
She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 2001 and with a law degree from Notre Dame Law School in 2006.
Nadia Shihata
Assistant U.S. attorney
On the second day of the trial, Shihata questioned Kelly’s doctor about a diagnosis of a sexually transmitted disease asking him, “Is there any doubt in your mind that the defendant had genital herpes?”
Shihata is deputy chief of the Organized Crime and Gangs Section for the Eastern District of New York, where she has worked for 10 years. She also lectures at Columbia Law School.
Prior to that she served as a law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a litigation associate at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., and appeals counsel in the Office of the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands.
She earned bachelor’s degrees in international relations and French from Tufts University in 2000, graduated magna cum laude a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 2003 and received a degree in international legal studies from New York University School of Law in 2008.
In this courtroom artist's sketch made from a video screen monitor of a Brooklyn courtroom, defendant R. Kelly, top left, listens as Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez, center, makes opening arguments, on Aug. 18, 2021 in New York. (Elizabeth Williams/AP) (Elizabeth Williams/AP)
Defense team
According to legal experts, Kelly’s attorneys are tasked with poking holes in each of the alleged predicate acts that make up the racketeering charge, challenging witnesses on their memories and motives, and on the existence of any illegal enterprise to begin with.
Legal experts who spoke to the Tribune said Kelly’s lawyers will clearly have a much tougher time defending this case than at his last criminal trial in 2008, when a Cook County jury decided they couldn’t be sure Kelly was the man seen in a poorly lit videotape having sex with someone prosecutors alleged was a teen girl.
Kelly’s previous top attorneys were fired from the case in June. The defense sought to delay opening statements, arguing it didn’t have adequate time to meet with their client and prepare for trial.
Nicole Blank Becker
Kelly’s attorney
Becker took over Kelly’s case in June after two Chicago-based attorneys were ousted from the team. She considered filing a motion to withdraw from the case on the eve of the trial, but delivered opening statements for Kelly’s defense — which lasted two hours and caused Judge Donnelly to order the court recessed for lunch in the middle of it — when the trial began Aug. 18.
“All of their stories, all of their explanations, they’re all going to sound kind of similar,” Becker told the court about the witnesses who would be called by the prosecution.
R. Kelly's attorney Nicole Blank Becker is surrounded by reporters as she arrives at Brooklyn Federal court for opening statements on Aug. 18, 2021, in New York. (Mary Altaffer/AP)
A few times during opening statements, Becker praised Kelly’s mental acuity, his work ethic, his adoring fans and his beautiful music — until she had to stop when prosecutors objected or Donnelly called for a sidebar.
And repeatedly, Becker referred to the witnesses as “girls” before correcting herself to “women,” a fraught mistake in a trial that involves repeated allegations of sex with minors, Tribune reporters Megan Crepeau and Jason Meisner noted.
Becker has never tried a federal criminal case.
Becker formerly was the head of the sex crimes unity in the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office in Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press, before starting her private practice.
She graduated from Wayne State University Law School in 2000, according to her Linkedin profile.
Deveraux Cannick
Kelly’s attorney
“You were in fact stalking him, right?” Cannick asked witness Jerhonda Johnson Pace on the second day of the trial.
Cannick also confronted Pace with a lawsuit settlement she signed in which Kelly asserted she had shown him an ID saying she was 19. She said it was in exchange for hush money.
R. Kelly's attorney Deveraux Cannick is surrounded by reporters as he leaves Brooklyn Federal court during the R&B star's trial, on Aug. 18, 2021, in New York. (Mary Altaffer/AP)
Cannick joined Kelly’s legal team in June after the singer was brought to New York. He called preparing for the trial a “herculean effort.”
He was asked pretrial if the closing of the courtroom might be grounds for appeal if Kelly is convicted.
Cannick smiled and said, “If there was a conviction, we’d use every error that was made” in an appeal.
Among the high-profile cases Cannick has tried was the 2019 trial of a man accused of kidnapping rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine. In his opening statement in that case, Cannick compared the rapper to another Chicago-area celebrity, saying Tekashi 6ix9ine had faked his own abduction in the same way “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett allegedly staged a bogus racial attack on himself.
“This was a hoax,” Cannick told jurors, according to news reports at the time. “It’s a Jussie Smollett, if you will.”
Cannick’s client was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison.
He is a founding partner and principal member of the Aiello & Cannick firm in Maspeth, N.Y. Previously, he was an assistant district attorney in Bronx County.
He has a law degree from Fordham University, according to his Linkedin profile.
Thomas Farinella
Kelly’s lead attorney
Farinella, like Becker, has never tried a federal criminal case. He also, like Becker, asked the court to give the defense team more time to prepare for trial.
“Given the nearness of trial, the defense is not given ample amount of time to ensure an adequate opportunity to assess the evidence, the purpose for which the evidence is offered,” and whether prosecutors had the legal basis for their request, Becker and Farinella wrote in the 13-page motion in late July.
Thomas A. Farinella, enters Brooklyn Federal Court in New York on Aug. 18, 2021. (Wes Parnell/for New York Daily News)
Records show that the New York-based Farinella, who previously worked as a bankruptcy attorney, had his law license suspended more than a decade ago after he was alleged to have made improper charges to a client’s credit card and neglected “numerous client matters.”
At the time, Farinella argued to stay the proceedings due to a “mental infirmity” that made it impossible to defend himself against the accusations. Farinella’s psychiatrist testified that Farinella “shuts down during stressful situations he is not able to adequately contribute to his defense or other legal processes,” according to a 2011 ruling by the New York Supreme Court.
Farinella graduated from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law in 2000, according to his Linkedin profile.
In this courtroom artist's sketch made from a video screen monitor of a Brooklyn courtroom, defendant R. Kelly, top left, listens as his defense attorney Nicole Blank Becker, center, makes her opening statement on Aug. 18, 2021 in New York. (Elizabeth Williams/AP) (Elizabeth Williams/AP)
Witnesses
Witnesses who allege abuse can testify with only their first name given to jurors, who sit in the gallery rather than the jury box because of a reconfigured courtroom tied to coronavirus restrictions.
Jerhonda Johnson Pace
Met Kelly when she was 15
Over two days of testimony, Pace, now 28, told jurors Kelly had sex with her repeatedly when she was 16 after meeting him in Chicago. During their time together, his abuse and control of her escalated, she said, and he made her follow manipulative “rules” that prosecutors said are central to his alleged criminal scheme.
In this courtroom sketch Jerhonda Pace testifies against R. Kelly during the singer's sex abuse trial on Aug. 18, 2021, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams/AP)
The jury
Jury selection began on Aug. 9 and concluded after three days with the selection of seven men and five women whose identities are anonymous but include “a mother of two school-aged children; a fraud investigator who said she is active in her church; a woman with several incarcerated family members; and a man who works at a hotel,” according to The New York Times.
Among the questions for jurors to sort out: Were the alleged victims really coerced, or were they merely fans of Kelly’s who participated willingly? Did they have a reasonable fear of retaliation for leaving? And, in the case of alleged minor victims, did Kelly actually know they were underage?
Members of the media gather outside to attend the trial in the racketeering and sex trafficking case of R. Kelly at Brooklyn Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York on Aug. 18, 2021. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images) (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Sources: Tribune reporting and archives; AP; The New York Times; U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
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