Sex-trafficking trial Archives

R. Kelly in Court federal child pornography

R. Kelly’s ex-business manager says he didn’t believe claims from decades ago that the singer sexually abused underage girls.

Testifying yesterday in front of a federal jury, Derrel McDavid said he was convinced that the allegations were just part of a plot orchestrated by the singer’s enemies to destroy him.

McDavid admitted to jurors that he had seen the prosecution’s star witness, according to the AP. Referred to by the pseudonym “Jane” at the current trial, when she was a minor hanging around Kelly’s studio in the late 1990s. He said Kelly “angrily denied” any rumors that he was sexually abusing Jane, who Kelly described as his god daughter at the time.

“I believed him,” McDavid testified.

McDavid is on trial alongside Kelly in Chicago. He is charged with helping the convicted R&B singer foil an earlier 2008 child-pornography trial that resulted in Kelly’s acquittal.

This comes nearly two months after Kelly was given a 30-year sentence in New York City on racketeering and other sex trafficking charges. He has maintained his innocence.

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The post R. Kelly’s Co-Defendant and Former Business Manager Says He Didn’t Believe Early Sex Abuse Claims appeared first on The Source.

Reports of R. Kelly’s sexual exploitation, grooming, and abuse of young women have been leveled against the R&B star for decades, but recent allegations have grown to include preying on young men as well. TZtestimony from the victim was already shared in legal documents, but he who was then 17-years-old when he appeared in court in New York today as a witness in Kelly’s sex-trafficking trial to detail how he initially met Kelly at McDonalds.

As The Guardian reports, the witness, who asked to testify anonymous, relayed how he was lured to Kelly’s house in 2007 where the singer asked “what I was willing to do for music.” The victim said he responded: “I’ll carry your bags… anything you need, I’ll be willing to do.” That was when Kelly brushed aside his offer for assistant work with “that’s not it, that’s not it,” asked if the victim had ever had sexual fantasies about men, and then proceeded to get on his knees and perform oral sex on the teenager. The victim said “he told me to keep [the encounter] between him and me,” and noted that he kept seeing the superstar after the incident because he was hopeful it would lead to success in the music industry.

Read more reporting on today’s testimony via The Guardian.