CHICAGO — On Tuesday, Charles Freeman told a wild tale to jurors about how R. Kelly and his associates allegedly agreed to pay him up to a million dollars in the early 2000s to hunt down videotapes of the R&B singer sexually assaulting a young teen girl.
But that account came under withering scrutiny within minutes of cross-examination beginning Wednesday, with an attorney for Kelly’s co-defendant, Derrel McDavid, painting Freeman as a liar and opportunist who has given varying contradicting accounts about the conspiracy over the years.
“People who lie, people who cheat, people who take advantage of others for money, those are people whose word is hard to trust, agreed?” Brindley asked pointedly at the outset of his questioning. Freeman said, “Agreed.”
“Have you ever lied under oath about videotapes connected to Robert Kelly?” Brindley asked.
After Freeman said no, Brindley replied, “We’re gonna come back to that Mr. Freeman. I want you to remember what you said, OK?”
Despite the contentious nature of the questioning, Freeman has kept a smile on his face on the witness stand. often chuckling and sipping from a bottle of iced tea. It seemed like he smiled and got calmer as Brindley grew more frustrated
Brindley began cross with his hands folded calmly in front of him, but quickly grew more animated, pointing into the air for emphasis
The jurors appear to be paying close attention. Often, when asking his most pointed questions, Brindley has looked out at jurors seated in the courtroom gallery — not at Freeman.
Brindley has so far spent most if his time questioning Freeman about his February 2019 sworn statement to a Cook County grand jury, which said he’d “figured out who had taken the tape by calling some of Rob’s employees who heard that a man had a videotape and was showing it to people in Atlanta.”
Freeman told the jury in Kelly’s trial on Tuesday, however, that it was McDavid who’d given him the name of the person with the tape.
Brindley has been animated in his questioning, often interrupting Freeman as he tries to explain the discrepancies. At one point, Brindley stopped him and said, “You understand that what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, sir?”
“Yes, it does,” Freeman said.
“It does to you,” Brindley shot back.
Brindley has also tried to pin Freeman down on when he realized there was pornography on the tapes -- and who told him. Freeman testified Tuesday that he first knew of the contents when he popped the tape in a VCR shortly after recovering it in Atlanta and saw Kelly having sex with a young girl.
But in varying accounts he gave previously under oath, Freeman said that he’d been told before he even went to Atlanta that Kelly’s camp was trying to recover sex tapes.
That timeline could prove important. McDavid’s attorneys have argued that at the time, McDavid was under the impression that the allegations of sexual misconduct by Kelly with minors were untrue, and that the tapes circulating on the street had been doctored.
Earlier on, Brindley apparently caught Freeman smiling. “Is this funny?” he asked the witness. “Are you having a good time?”
Brindley then asked Freeman if he was bothered that he’s held onto alleged child pornography for 20 years. Freeman said he wasn’t.
“You’re not upset for what you’ve done?” Brindley shouted, which was followed by objections by prosecutors.
Freeman who was colorful and loose on direct examination on Tuesday, is a key witness to the heart of the indictment alleging there was a conspiracy to cover up sexual misconduct by Kelly. Defense attorneys have described him in opening statements last week as a con man, extortionist and criminal.
Even U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber, 85, who has been on the federal bench for nearly 40 years, quipped on Tuesday he was “looking forward” to the defense questioning.
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 McDavid and another associate, 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.
Freeman testified Tuesday that he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years in exchange for getting at least one of those incriminating tapes back.
The plot as described by Freeman spanned almost a decade, and unfolded in cities from Chicago to Kansas City and Atlanta, at Kelly’s music studio, concert venues and even the singer’s sprawling Olympia Fields mansion, where Freeman said he was told to strip naked and get in a pool to prove he wasn’t wearing a wire.
Freeman is testifying under an immunity agreement from prosecutors. In one of his more memorable statements on the witness stand Tuesday, Freeman said he did not tell the police about the child pornography he’d recovered “because the police wasn’t going to pay me a million dollars.”
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