US prosecutors have rested their case against R Kelly after presenting two weeks of evidence in their effort to show that the singer enticed under-age girls for sex, produced child pornography and successfully rigged his 2008 state trial.
Among the last prosecution witnesses was a 42-year-old woman who went by the pseudonym Nia, who was the fourth accuser to give evidence against the Grammy Award-winning singer at the trial in his home town of Chicago.
The highlight of prosecutors’ case was evidence from a 37-year-old woman who used the pseudonym Jane, and described Kelly sexually abusing her hundreds of times, starting in 1998 when she was 14 and Kelly was around 30.
Jane’s evidence is vital to the charge accusing Kelly of fixing his 2008 child pornography trial, at which he was acquitted.
She said Kelly and his associates threatened and paid off her and her parents so they lied to a grand jury before the trial.
Kelly’s legal team now gets its chance to attack the government’s case. His lawyers have not said whether he will give evidence.
The 55-year-old did not give evidence at his earlier federal trial in New York, where a judge sentenced him in June to 30 years in prison for racketeering and sex trafficking.
A conviction in Chicago could add years to that sentence.
Closing arguments in the federal trial in Chicago are expected next week.
Kelly’s 2008 state trial revolved around a video prosecutors said showed him sexually abusing Jane. She did not give evidence at that trial but told jurors this month that she was the child in the video and Kelly was the man.
The singer sold millions of albums even after allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage over his sexual misconduct did not emerge until after the MeToo reckoning and the 2019 docuseries Surviving R Kelly.
