BROOKLYN (CN) — Prosecutors outlined decades of sordid sexual allegations against R. Kelly at the start of the singer’s federal trial Wednesday, focusing on the inner ring of associates and employees said to have facilitated the abuse of women and minors while helping Kelly control his victims’ every move.
U.S. District Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez described a pattern starting in the early 1990s: Kelly would identify a fan eager to meet the rising, and later chart-topping, R&B singer, contact her through an associate and pay for her to travel to come see him.
“He had his pick of young fans in cities around the country,” Melendez said.
Four of the six victims in the nine-count indictment were minors when Kelly, now 54, began alleged sexual relationships with them. The singer groomed victims “using every trick in the predator handbook,” Melendez said, instructing them to call him “Daddy,” wear baggy clothing, and keep their heads down when other people — especially other men — were present.
“He began collecting girls and women as if they were things — hoarding them like objects that he could use however he liked,” Melendez said.
To ensure “absolute obedience,” including having sex with others at Kelly’s direction, Melendez said the “Trapped in the Closet” singer kept a stash of sensitive or degrading nude and sexual photos and videos, as well as letters falsely admitting to stealing from Kelly.
Walking through each of the victims in the indictment, Melendez began with the singer Aaliyah, who turned 13 in 1992 when she met R. Kelly, then 25.
What began with Kelly writing music for the child soon turned into a sexual relationship and then a plan to marry the then-15-year-old Aaliyah in 1994 following a pregnancy scare. “If she is his wife, then she can’t testify against him, or so he thought,” Melendez said.
As charged in the first count of Kelly’s indictment, Kelly and his associates bribed a public official to create a fake ID for Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in 2001. The ceremony, Melendez said, was officiated by a minister in a hotel suite. The marriage was later annulled once Aaliyah’s parents learned about it.
Stephanie, the second alleged victim, met Kelly at a Nike store when she was 16 years old and Kelly was 32, beginning a sexual relationship that lasted for six to eight months.
Jerhonda Pace, another victim listed in the indictment, was the first to take the stand on Wednesday afternoon. She has spoken publicly in the past about abuse by Kelly, and appeared in the Lifetime docu-series “Surviving R. Kelly," describing first meeting the singer as a 14-year-old “superfan” who skipped school to attend his 2008 child pornography trial in Chicago.
Pace described going to a party at Kelly’s home in Olympia Fields, Illinois, the month after she turned 16 years old. First claiming to be 19, Pace said she exchanged phone numbers with Kelly and later returned to the house, where she undressed for Kelly, who was 42 at the time, and allowed him to perform oral sex on her.
Feeling uncomfortable, Pace told the singer her true age and showed him her ID, she testified.
“He asked me, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’” Pace said, and then instructed her to continue telling others she was 19, and to “act 21.”
Then, she said, “he bent me over the back of a sofa and he took my virginity.”
Over the course of a sexual relationship that lasted six to eight months, Pace said she contracted herpes from Kelly, who is charged with transmitting the disease to several other victims without their consent. She also said she got a tattoo of Kelly’s name on her left breast, at his suggestion, and has since covered it up with a black heart.
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