Celebrity Gossip

R. Kelly was acquitted of all charges Friday following just hours of deliberations in his child pornography trial, ending a six-year ordeal for the R&B singer.

Kelly was seen wiping his face with a handkerchief then he hugged each of his four attorneys after the verdict of not guilty on all 14 counts - was read. The Grammy award-winning singer had potentially faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Following his aquittall Kelly, surrounded by bodyguards, he left the courthouse refusing to comment as fans screamed and cheered, he sped away in a waiting SUV.

Kelly’s attorney Sam Adam jr told the assembled press that during the reading of the not guilty verdicts his client kept repeating ‘Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,”.

Prosecutors had argued that a video tape mailed to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002 showed Kelly engaged in graphic sex acts with a girl as young as 13 at the time, but both Kelly, 41, and the now 23-year-old alleged victim had denied they were the ones on the tape. Neither were called to testify during the trial.

The prosecution’s main witness was a woman who said she engaged in three-way sex with Kelly and the alleged victim, the defence discredited this by showing that the man on the tape didn’t have a large mole on his back, Kelly has such a mole.

The procecusions case depended on whether Kelly was the man who appears on a sexually graphic, 27-minute videotape at the centre of the case, and whether a female who also appears on it was underage.

The prosecutions case lasted seven days during which they called 22 witnesses, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who identified her as the female on the video.

While in contrast the defence took just two days, calling 12 witnesses including three relatives of the alleged victim who testified they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.

Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Shauna Boliker said she believed the female on the tape was a victim, not a prostitute as the defence had contended.

Kelly won a Grammy in 1997 for “I Believe I Can Fly,” and is known for such raunchy hits as “Bump N’ Grind,” “Ignition,” and for “Trapped in the Closet,” a multipart saga about the sexual secrets of an ever-expanding cast of characters.

The jury was made up of nine men and three women; of which eight were white and four were black and included the wife of a Baptist preacher from Kelly’s Chicago-area hometown, a compliance officer for a Chicago investment firm and a man who emigrated from then-Communist Romania nearly 40 years ago.

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Well thank God for that mole!

CHICAGO - A star prosecution witness cried Monday as she alleged at R. Kelly’s child pornography trial several three-way sexual encounters with the R&B superstar and the alleged victim, some of which she said Kelly videotaped.

Lisa Van Allen, 27, the last witness before prosecutors rested their case, also told jurors in more than three hours of graphic and dramatic testimony that Kelly last year offered her $250,000 to recover a tape of one of the trysts.

During cross-examination, a defense attorney accused Van Allen of plotting to extort money from the singer, a claim she denied. Under further questioning she admitted she once stole Kelly’s $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.

“Van Allen is an admitted thief and liar who wouldn’t know the truth if she tripped over it,” Kelly’s business manager, Derrel McDavid, said in a statement.

Kelly, 41, faces as many as 15 years in prison if convicted of child pornography on suspicion of videotaping himself having sex with a female prosecutors say was as young as 13. He has pleaded not guilty and both he and the alleged victim, now 23, deny being on the video — which is separate from those Van Allen testified to being on.

The state, which called more than a dozen witnesses over two weeks, rested its case after Van Allen’s testimony. Jurors will get Tuesday off before the defense begins its presentation on Wednesday.
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CHICAGO - Prosecutors played the sex tape at the center of R. Kelly’s child pornography trial in open court Tuesday, just hours after opening statements in which they accused the R&B singer of choreographing and starring in a video featuring “vile, disturbing and disgusting sex acts” with an underage girl.

The jurors, who took feverish notes during opening statements, sat motionless while the video played. Their eyes fixed on a 4-by-4-foot monitor just outside the jury box. In the courtroom, the lights were dimmed and blinds drawn across windows. There were several other monitors in the room, including one facing the crowded gallery.

A grim, intent Kelly watched the whole video on a small monitor placed on the defense table, only occasionally averting his eyes. At times, the 41-year-old rocked in his chair or rested his chin in his hand.
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