Years in the making, R Kelly sex abuse trial gets under way

NEW YORK (AP):

R&B star R Kelly is a predator who lured girls, boys and young women with his fame and dominated them physically, sexually and psychologically, a prosecutor said on Wednesday, while a defence lawyer warned jurors that they’ll have to sift through lies from accusers with agendas to find the truth.

The differing perspectives came as the long-anticipated trial began unfolding in a Brooklyn courtroom, where several accusers were expected to testify in the next month about the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling singer whose career has been derailed by charges that have left him jailed as he goes broke.

“This case is not about a celebrity who likes to party a lot,” Assistant US Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez told the Brooklyn jury as she explained the evidence to be revealed at his federal trial. “This case is about a predator.”

She said he distributed backstage passes to entice children and women to join him, sometimes at his home or studio, where he then “dominated and controlled them physically, sexually and psychologically”.

RECORD SEX ACTS

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 “fulfil each and every one 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.

But Kelly’s attorney, Nicole Blank Becker, 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,” she said, urging jurors to closely scrutinise the testimony. “They knew exactly what they were getting into. It was no secret Mr Kelly had multiple girlfriends. He was quite transparent.”

The lawyer said it would be a stretch to believe he orchestrated an elaborate criminal enterprise, like a mob boss.

Becker warned jurors that they’ll have to sort through “a mess of lies” from women with an agenda.

“Don’t assume everybody’s telling the truth,” she said.

Defence lawyers have maintained in court papers prior to the trial that Kelly’s alleged victims were groupies who turned up at his shows and made it known they “were dying to be with him”. The women only started accusing him of abuse years later when public sentiment shifted against him, they said.