Chicago, Illinois- Two other alleged survivors R.Kelly engaged them in sexual acts when they were minors as R. Kelly’s federal child pornography trial in Chicago entered its third week at Dirksen’s U.S. courthouse on Monday.
While one accuser appeared defiant and the other coy as they recounted their allegations under pseudonyms, they both shared similar details. “Pauline” was 14 while “Tracy” was 16 when Kelly allegedly first proposed to them. Both claimed that their respective love for him initially prevented them from detailing the events to authorities.
Pauline, 37, said she met R. Kelly from prosecutors’ star witness “Jane”, who was her “best friend”. (Jane’s tape is central to this case and the 2008 trial for which Kelly was acquitted, which allegedly depicts Kelly engaging in sexual acts with Jane when she was underage.) Pauline’s first sexual encounter, she testified, took place in one of Kelly’s homes. , when Pauline walked in on Rob kneeling in front of Jane, who was naked. Pauline said he told her he was looking for bruises on Jane after she injured herself, and added that “we all have secrets”. He then encouraged her to kiss Jane, which she did, and the three of them engaged in fondling and oral sex according to his testimony.
Pauline said the trios later included another of her best friends, who is expected to testify as “Bretagne”. The encounters took place “several times”, Pauline testified, and included Kelly giving them alcohol and engaging him in sexual acts between her and the singer. The incidents took place at one of his homes, at his Chicago Trax studio, and on his in-state and out-of-state tour bus. She said their sexual encounters evolved into intercourse when she was 15.
Kelly also filmed their meetings and at one point Pauline said she took one of his videotapes, which she said, as others testified, he kept in a bag of sport, but then returned it.
The two had a relationship for a few years and when she was around 20 she said he ‘wasn’t a good boyfriend’ so she pretended she was ‘Brittany’ and called him to money. “He called her [being an] extortionist,” Pauline explained. “I call it ‘Don’t play with me.'” She added, “It was just a threat…It wasn’t about the money,” it was more about wanting her little one’s attention. friend.
When asked why she was now testifying to underage charges when she did not mention them in a June 2019 interview, she told authorities she was in a different place in life, but that “I loved him, still love him” and described him as “best friend meets boyfriend meets dad.”
His answers and testimony were sometimes frankly explicit (when Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, asked how often they met, she said it plainly: “We fucked a lot.”)
Bonjean introduced herself to Pauline as a representative of R. Kelly, to which Pauline joked, “Great” as they lightly discussed the details of Pauline’s story, which included Bonjean suggesting that Pauline was not underage when she and R. Kelly began engaging in sexual acts. , and that Pauline was trying to extort Kelly. Pauline denied the charge.
When Bonjean asked Pauline if she had tried first extort $50,000 or $35,000 from Kelly, Pauline joked, “Is that your conclusion? It’s zonte. I like it!” And like the previous survivor Lisa Van Allen said during her cross-examination, Pauline exclaimed “Good” at the end of Bonjean’s cross-examination.
While Pauline delivered fiery testimony on Monday, Tracy was more subdued in reminiscing about her experience with Kelly.
Tracy, 40, said she met Kelly in 1999, aged 16, when she interned for a record company. She said she first met Kelly at a gym called Hoops and that she and her boss met at his Chicago Trax recording studio where she claims she rebuffed his early advances. Shortly after, she and her friend met him at an expo, where he gave them his number and they then called. The two friends go to his workshop.
While in her studio, Tracy said she told him she was 16 and he told her he was 23. She claims he started kissing her and that “when I looked down, he had exposed himself”. She added that he had pleasured himself and after he ejaculated he apologized and told her he had ‘never done anything like this before’. About a week later, she alleges that he “forced himself” on her in a hotel room. Later that summer, she claims to have had sex for the first time in her studio.
She detailed other encounters that brought her to tears on the stand and when it happened, including her involvement in a threesome with Jane and Kelly at Kelly’s alleged request. “I was crying and he told me to stop being a baby,” she said through tears of the experience, which she filmed by Kelly.
Tracy filed a civil lawsuit against Kelly in 2001, which was detailed in a episode of Deadline in 2019. The suit was settled out of court for $250,000, however, Tracy said she had not received the full settlement.
During cross-examination, Bonjean delved into alleged inconsistencies in Tracy’s account of her age. Documents from her trial appear to show Tracy was 17 – the age of consent in Illinois – although Tracy disputed the delay in the documents. Tracy suggested that her lawyer had misfiled this information and that she “never saw the documents” and that they were “incorrect”; Tracy apologized several times during cross-examination.
Kelly and his co-defendants Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown are accused of receiving child pornography in an alleged effort to recover missing tapes that allegedly show Kelly engaging in sexual acts with minors . Additionally, Kelly and McDavid face obstruction of justice charges related to allegations that they paid people who knew about Kelly’s alleged abuse and tried to obstruct the child pornography investigation. of 2008 on Kelly. All three pleaded not guilty.
The prosecution said it plans to close its case this week, which could include more testimony from victims, before the defendants present their respective cases and witnesses in a trial that is expected to run until the end of the day. mid-September.