CHICAGO — Two more R. Kelly accusers have taken the stand at his Chicago federal trial and testified that the singer had sexual contact with them when they were underage.
Monday’s first witness, a 37-year-old woman testifying under the pseudonym “Pauline,” said she was best friends with “Jane,” Kelly’s goddaughter. When she was about 14 years old she went looking for Jane at Kelly’s home and found her naked, kneeling in front of Kelly, she testified.
“He told me he was just looking for bruises on her, because she hurt herself,” she said. “I told him that ‘that’s not how you look for bruises’ and he said that’s how he looked for bruises ... then he stated that ‘we all have secrets.’”
For most of her testimony, R. Kelly, dressed in a dark blue suit, has kept his head down, sometimes shaking it back and forth as Pauline talked about things he allegedly said to her about “secrets.”
Kelly directed her to have sexual contact with him and Jane, and the three began to have sexual interactions regularly, she said. It was dozens or maybe hundreds of times when Pauline was ages 14 to 16, she testified, with Kelly providing alcohol, specifically Hpnotiq.
Pauline testified she also had threesomes with Kelly and another girl, “Brittany.” Kelly would videotape the encounters, she said.
“He had tripods and cameras in the room,” and kept the tapes in a gym bag, she testified.
When Pauline was contacted by Chicago police in 2001, she identified Jane in a photo, but only because Pauline’s mother was in the room and also would have recognized Jane.
Later, testifying before a Cook County grand jury, Pauline also identified Jane. But she lied and said she had never seen Kelly have sexual contact with Jane, she said.
Pauline remained in a relationship with Kelly for years as an adult. When she was 20, she made a phone call to his studio posing as “Brittany” and asked for money.
“Well, he called it extortion, I called it ‘don’t play with me,’” she testified. She was just trying to get his attention since she hadn’t heard from him in a while, she said.
“Girls get mad and say stupid stuff and want to slap you or bust your car windows out. It was just a threat. He knew that. If he didn’t know that he wouldn’t have had me around all these years,” Pauline said. Some jurors chuckled.
Pauline still feels affection for Kelly, she said.
“I loved him and I still love him,” she testified. “... In a weird way, I know you might judge me, but it’s like best friend meets boyfriend meets dad.”
Cross-examination by Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean began with flashes of sarcasm.
When Bonjean approached and said, “I guess we’re calling you Pauline,” the witness shot back, “You can hear just like I can.”
Then Bonjean introduced herself, saying she represents Kelly.
Pauline, heavy with sarcasm, shot back: “Awesome.”
Bonjean suggested that the singer’s sexual relationship with Pauline actually began when she was legally an adult.
Pauline’s threatening phone call to Kelly’s studio did not specifically promise to reveal that they had sex when she was underage — it only mentioned something inappropriate that happened on a tour bus, Pauline acknowledged.
“In your effort to extort Mr. Kelly of $35,000 you didn’t lead with your best stuff, did you?” Bonjean asked. “... It seems if you really want to get someone’s attention you might mention ‘oh, we had an illicit relationship as a minor.’”
Pauline also only revealed to law enforcement in 2019 her story that she ran into Kelly and a naked Jane.
“You failed to disclose any information about what you saw,” Bonjean said.
“Oh, I didn’t fail,” Pauline shot back. “I was a scared minor, so that’s how I reacted to it.”
Bonjean also noted that Pauline has in the past given varying estimates of how many times she had sexual encounters with Kelly and Jane.
Pauline brushed that off. It was over a lengthy period of time, she said: “You could say 100, you could say 200, we f---ed a LOT.”
Pauline testified on direct examination that Kelly would give her alcohol before their encounters, and specifically mentioned Hpnotiq, a distinctive sky-blue liqueur.
But, Bonjean said, Hpnotiq wasn’t released until 2002, the year Pauline turned 18. The drink’s official website notes that it “came on the scene” in 2001.
“You couldn’t have been drinking Hpnotiq when you were 14,” Bonjean said. Pauline took it in stride: “OK, but I was still drinking.”
Hpnotiq stands out because it was a favorite of Kelly’s, Pauline said. He used to mix it with Hennessy, a cocktail he called “The Incredible Hulk.”
Jurors have been listening intently to Pauline, who has been bold and explicit on the stand.
When asked by prosecutors to describe a certain sex act with Kelly, Pauline said loudly: “Sucking (expletive).” One juror put her hand over her heart.
Just before the lunch break, another Kelly accuser took the stand, testifying using only her first name: Tracy.
Tracy met Kelly in 1999, when she was a 16-year-old intern at a record label, she testified.
Not long afterward, Kelly gave her his phone number at an expo and told her to call him. When she did, he invited her to his studio, where he got her into an office area alone, she said.
He said he liked her, and she told him she was 16, she testified.
“He’s like, 'OK,'" she said. “... He told me he was 23.”
They kissed, and when she declined to give him oral sex, he masturbated and ejaculated on her, she said.
“I tried to pull back, but he had a hold on my shirt and he was pleasuring himself,” she testifies. Afterward, when he saw she was upset, “he said he was really sorry and he didn’t mean to upset me ... he promised that that wasn’t his usual behavior.”
About a week later, Kelly sexually assaulted her in a hotel room, she testified, describing their encounter in great detail.
“I told him I didn’t want to have sex, but he had forced himself in me,” she said. “... When I asked him (to stop) he did stop.”
Tracy’s testimony was expected to continue after a lunch break.
Before the prosecution rests, jurors are expected to hear from more women who say Kelly sexually abused them when they were underage. The trial’s first week focused on “Jane,” who identified herself as the girl being sexually abused by Kelly in three separate videos from the 1990s.
One of those videos became the subject of Kelly’s 2008 Cook County trial, during which he was acquitted of child pornography charges — because, prosecutors now allege, Kelly and his associates went to great lengths to keep “Jane” quiet and recover other incriminating footage.
Witnesses last week largely focused on those efforts. Three people testified that Kelly’s team paid them to bring him videos of his homemade child pornography while he was awaiting his Cook County trial. Defense attorneys, during lengthy cross-examinations, have challenged their stories as inconsistent and tried to paint them as unreliable extortionists.
Kelly, 55, is charged with 13 counts of production of child pornography, conspiracy to produce child pornography and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Also on trial are former Kelly associates Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, who, according to the indictment, schemed to buy back incriminating sex tapes that had been taken from Kelly’s collection and hide years of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.
____
