R. Kelly victims recount years of abuse at singer’s sentencing

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to interrupt your conversation,” she said. 

The last of the seven to speak was Faith, who was joined by her father, who attended the trial that kicked off in August 2021. 

“My concern is not if you’re sorry. I can see that you’re not,” Faith said. “I can see your enablers around, I can see their faces, I can see your attorneys’ faces.” 

Supporters of R. Kelly filled a row in the front of the courtroom as Faith described harassment she experienced after speaking publicly about being sexually abused by Kelly, including being unaware that he had a sexually transmitted disease that she now lives with. Kelly’s associate Donnell Russell threatened to release nude photos of Faith to silence her, Faith testified, and eventually did so. 

During trial, supporters yelled at Faith’s family, prompting a scolding from U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly, and subsequently, the public and media were combined into one overflow room so a second room could be used for family members. 

Faith’s father, a pastor, said he believes Kelly can redeem himself, but he must first acknowledge what he did. 

“I didn’t come here to bash Mr. Kelly … but I do want to ask you, Mr. Kelly, to look at me man to man, father to father,” he said. “Put yourself in my shoes. I’ve certainly put myself in yours.” 

Kelly continued to stare straight ahead. 

Outside the courtroom, tensions flared into a screaming match between women who said they were attending trial on behalf of victims and others supporting Kelly. One supporter, who flashed media credentials, scuffled with reporters after she stood in front of cameras to film Bonjean. She chimed in several times as the attorney spoke. A male supporter refused to stop shouting over Martinez, Allred and Javonte as they spoke to the crowd. 

Supporters insist that the women accusing Kelly are lying, consented to sex, and knew they were getting involved in a particular sexual lifestyle, a point Bonjean argued in court. She pointed to Jane, a witness who testified that her sexual contact with Kelly started in 2015 when she was 17 years old and Kelly was 48. 

“We can all take issue with the age difference, but at the end of the day … this would have been a legal relationship, and a consensual one,” Bonjean said. 

Bonjean said that although Kelly admits no wrongdoing, “he has regrets and he’s sad.” 

“He accepts that he is a flawed individual, but he is not the one-dimensional monster that the government has portrayed,” Bonjean said. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes disagreed with that assessment. 

“It is not enough to say he accepts responsibility, and then continue to perpetrate this narrative that he’s done nothing wrong,” she told the court. 

After Kelly declined to make a statement, Donnelly walked through her own reaction to trial evidence, speaking in a slow and somber tone. 

“Although sex was certainly a weapon that you used, this case is not about sex,” Donnelly said. “It’s about violence and cruelty and control.” 

In a sentencing memo Bonjean, who helped comedian Bill Cosby overturn his sexual assault conviction, cited sexual abuse and trauma in Kelly’s own childhood. His mother beat him with cords and switches, and even stabbed Kelly in the left arm in one incident. Beginning when Kelly was just 6 or 7 years old, Bonjean wrote, he also suffered sexual abuse by his sister and a family friend that went on for years. 

Donnelly said she took all that into consideration. 

“Perhaps some of those experiences explain some of your behavior,” she said. “It most certainly is not an excuse.” 

The judge also addressed the enterprise upon which prosecutors pinned the racketeering charges — assistants, managers, runners and friends who all helped the singer recruit and maintain control over his young victims. Those close to Kelly would carry slips of paper with the singer’s phone number scrawled or printed and hand them out at concerts, malls and a Chicago McDonald’s at Kelly’s instruction, according to court testimony. 

“I don’t know why these people all turned a blind eye. Whether that was an excuse to every standards of human decency, because you were famous,” Donnelly said. “Maybe it just became normal to those people.” 

Donnelly said she would never forget a shocking incident described in court by a male accuser who testified as Louis. Kelly took him into a boxing ring in a detached building at his estate. “He snapped his fingers two times and a young lady came out from underneath the ring,” Louis said, adding that she was fully naked. “She crawled over to him and gave him oral sex,” then Kelly instructed her to do the same to Louis. 

Kelly’s efforts to explain away his conduct indicates he won’t be deterred from further abuse, Donnelly said. 

“You had a system in place that lured young people into your orbit, and then you took over their lives,” Donnelly said. “You raped them, beat them. One victim said that you beat her until she broke … one of the witnesses described these women as zombies.” 

Several women who spoke on Wednesday said that testifying allowed them to close a devastating chapter of their lives and begin to heal. 

Kelly meanwhile has a long way to go. He faces state and federal charges in Chicago, with trial set to begin in August. 

Follow @NinaPullano

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