An R Kelly accuser testified at the singer’s ongoing federal trial in New York that the R&B star ordered her to have sex with a young man he called ‘Nephew’ while he watched as punishment from breaking one of his rules.
The witness, known as Jane Doe No 5 in court records, alleged in her bombshell testimony that over the course of her five-year relationship with Kelly, the R&B star sexually abused her and infected her with herpes as a teen, regularly spanked her, and once even forced her to smear feces on her face in retaliation for disobedience.
The 23-year-old witness also told the jury that he barred her from watching the explosive six-part documentary ‘Surviving R Kelly,’ which detailed the singer’s alleged sexual misconduct, when it aired on Lifetime in 2019.
Kelly, now 54, has pleaded not guilty to a nine-count indictment describing his alleged abuse of six women and girls, including the late singer Aaliyah.
An R Kelly accuser known only as Jane Doe No 5 testifies on Tuesday during the singer’s federal racketeering trial at Brooklyn’s Federal District Court
Defense lawyer Deveraux Cannick cross examines Doe as she testifies on Tuesday
The prosecution team in the R Kelly trial enters Brooklyn Federal Court on the 6th day of testimony. August 24
The federal trial is expected to last several weeks, and Kelly could face life in prison if convicted.
Kelly also faces sex-related criminal charges in Illinois and Minnesota.
Doe, who began testifying on Monday, said she was a 17-year-old aspiring singer when she met Kelly at a 2015 Florida music festival, later lived with him in Chicago until the summer of 2019, and left him for good that October.
Kelly, 54, has pleaded not guilty to a nine-count indictment describing his alleged abuse of six women and girls, including the late singer Aaliyah
Under questioning from federal prosecutor Elizabeth Geddes on Tuesday, Doe, said Kelly told her to have nonconsensual sex meant as punishment multiple times in his presence with another man, ‘Nephew,’ who Kelly said he had been ‘grooming since he was young.’
According to the witness, during her first encounter with ‘Nephew,’ Kelly ordered the two of them to have oral sex and filmed the act while sitting naked in a hotel room.
Before subjecting Doe to the ‘punishment’ for breaking one of his rules, Kelly allegedly exhorted her to ‘not embarrass him’ and please ‘Nephew’ sexually.
Doe said having sex with Nephew was punishment for talking about her relationship with Kelly with his other girlfriends, which was against the rules.
During her testimony on Monday, Doe accused Kelly of infecting her with herpes when she was just 17 years old
During her testimony, Doe talked about allegedly being spanked by Kelly nearly every day, in what he called ‘chastising.’
THE CHARGES R. KELLY IS ON TRIAL FOR IN NEW YORK:
R. Kelly is standing trial in Brooklyn federal court accused of being the ringleader of a sex ring involving women and underage girls and boys.
The charges were first brought in a five-count superseding indictment in Brooklyn federal court in July 2019.
In March 2020, he was slapped with additional charges upgrading the case to a nine-count indictment.
The charges relate to allegations involving six alleged victims – five women named as Jane Does in the indictment and the singer Aaliyah. These charges are:
ONE COUNT OF RACKETEERING
The racketeering charge includes 14 underlying acts including: one act of bribery, three acts of sexual exploitation of a child, one act of kidnapping, three acts of forced labor and six acts of violating the Mann Act.
Racketeering charges are used where there is an ‘enterprise’, mob or mafia running organized crime operations.
In this case, Kelly is accused of running a racketeering ‘enterprise’ for two decades made up of his ‘inner circle’ of managers, bodyguards and other employees who would help him recruit women, girls and boys for him to sexually exploit and traffic them around the US.
To convict Kelly on the racketeering charge, he must be found guilty of at least two of the 14 acts.
EIGHT COUNTS OF VIOLATING THE MANN ACT
The Mann Act is a federal law that makes it illegal to traffic people across state lines for prostitution or illegal sexual activity.
Four of these charges relate to an incident involving Jane Doe #5 in 2015 while the other four involve Jane Doe #6 in separate incidents in May 2017 and February 2018.
Three of these charges involve Kelly allegedly exposing the two women to herpes without informing them.
‘He would leave bruises and it would sometimes make my skin tear,’ Doe claimed.
On one occasion, Kelly flew into a rage because she had texted a friend about him, she said. He grabbed a size 12 sneaker from his closet and assaulted her with it, she said.
‘He hit me all over,’ Doe said. ‘I was running from him and fighting back,’ but at 4-foot-11 and 98 pounds she said she was no match for him.
The witness told jurors the horrors didn’t end there. As a punishment, Kelly once forced her to rub feces on her face and in her mouth, and videotape it, Doe said, as The Daily Beast reported. She was also coerced into getting an abortion in 2017 after Kelly said he wasn’t ready to have a child with her and wanted her to keep her ‘tight body,’ she added.
Doe also said that when Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly documentary was coming out in January 2019, Kelly warned her that everything in it was false and she must change the channel.
Multiple witnesses have said Kelly maintained tight control at his Chicago home, with Doe saying he listened to her phone calls with her family and told her ‘exactly what to say,’ and ordered that she write him apology letters for breaking his rules.
She and Jerhonda Pace, the first accuser to testify during the trial, told the court that these rules included referring to Kelly as ‘Daddy,’ and needing permission to eat or go to the bathroom.
‘I’m not happy. I’m not being fulfilled sexually, and on top of that I’m getting spankings nearly every day,’ Doe said one of her apology letters said. ‘This isn’t what I want my life to be. I know it’s not what you want either.’
Doe also claimed that Kelly told her and his other live-in girlfriends that their parents had ‘sold’ them to him because they did not care about their daughters.
‘He would say that we were basically worthless and that we did not mean anything to them,’ the witness told the jury.
According to Doe, Kelly even implied that her parents had traded her in to him in exchange for drugs when she was 17.
Doe said that when she and another live-in girlfriend of the singer publicly defended Kelly in the now-infamous interview with CBS News’ Gayle King in 2019, prior to moving out of his house, Kelly coached them what to say and coughed in a distinctive way so they would know he was nearby, listening in.
‘He was letting us know he was in the room with us,’ she said.
When asked by a prosecutor if she was telling King the truth about her relationship with Kelly during the interview, Doe replied; ‘I was not.’
During her testimony on Monday, Doe testified that she met Kelly in 2015 at an Orlando festival, where the singer had paid ‘a lot of attention’ to her during his performance and had a staffer pass a note to her with his phone number written on it.
She said she hoped he could advance her career, and agreed in a Facetime call to meet at the Dolphin Hotel in Orlando.
Once there, Jane Doe 5 said Kelly gave her a ‘small pop kiss’ — his term — and took her to his room, where he allegedly convinced her to undress and walk back and forth in the nude, before performing oral sex on her.
‘I told him I did not come to please him, I came for an audition,’ the witness said from the stand. But she said Kelly was persistent, saying if he could perform oral sex he would ‘allow me to audition and take care of me for life.’
Doe 5 was 17 years old at the time but lied to Kelly that she was 18, according to her testimony.
Less than a month into their relationship, Jane Doe 5 said she had a sexual intercourse with Kelly for the first time and contracted herpes from him, which she said he had not told her he had.
R. Kelly pictured here with Aaliyah from the ‘Surviving R. Kelly’ Lifetime documentary
‘I felt this man had purposely given me something he knew he had… He was agitated and said I could have gotten that from anyone,’ the woman told the jury through tears, noting that she had not had sex with anyone else.
Jane Doe 5 said the virus would cause painful outbreaks after sexual encounters, prompting Kelly to mockingly remark: ‘I think your p***y is broken,’ according to her testimony.
‘It got to the point where I couldn’t even physically walk,’ she added, as The Daily Beast reported.
They were regularly having sex, with Kelly nearly always videotaping the encounters, she said.
Jane Doe 5 said when she confessed to Kelly that she was 17, he slapped her across the face with an open palm, but then invited her to live with him and be homeschooled in Chicago, where she remained for the next five years.
The jury was shown notes she wrote to herself about how to stay in line with his rules when she was around him.
‘Tell Daddy everything,’ she had written.
Earlier on Monday, Kelly’s lawyer Deveraux Cannick tried to discredit another prosecution witness.
Former tour manager Demetrius Smith had testified on Friday that Kelly, fearing he had gotten Aaliyah pregnant, paid a $500 bribe in 1994 in order to get fake ID so he could marry the then-15-year-old Aaliyah.
Asked if Kelly ‘had anything to do with you bribing anyone’ for a marriage license, Smith said ‘No, he didn’t.’
Speaking of the marriage, Smith told the court on Monday: ‘It shouldn’t have happened. It was wrong.’
Kelly is charged in the bribery scheme as part of the broader racketeering case accusing him of sexually abusing several women, girls and boys during the course of his 30-year singing career. He’s vehemently denied the charges, claiming that the women were groupies who wanted to take advantage of his fame and fortune.
Timeline of R. Kelly’s downfall from R&B superstar to ‘sexual predator’
August 1994: At age 27, R. Kelly marries 15-year-old R&B singer Aaliyah D. Haughton. The couple weds in a secret ceremony arranged by Kelly at a hotel in Chicago. The marriage is annulled months later because of Aaliyah’s age. Aaliyah dies in a plane crash seven years later at age 22.
February 1997: Tiffany Hawkins files a complaint against Kelly alleging intentional sexual battery and sexual harassment while she was a minor. The lawsuit is reportedly settled for $250,000 the following January.
August 2001: Tracy Sampson files a lawsuit against Kelly, alleging their sex was illegal under Illinois law because he was in ‘a position of authority’ over her. The case was reportedly settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
February 2002: The Chicago Sun-Times reported that it received a videotape allegedly showing Kelly having sex with a minor. The paper reported Chicago police began investigating allegations about Kelly and the same girl three years earlier. At the time, the girl and her parents denies she was having sex with Kelly.
June 2002: Kelly is indicted in Chicago on child pornography charges stemming from the sex tape. He pleads not guilty and is released on $750,000 bail.
January 2003: Kelly is arrested at a Florida hotel on additional child pornography charges after investigators said they found photos of him having sex with a girl. Charges are later dropped after the judge ruled police didn´t have a warrant to search Kelly’s house.
September 2005: Kelly’s wife Andrea Kelly asks for an order of protection from her husband, accusing the singer of hitting her when she said she wanted a divorce. The couple confirm they have divorced in 2009.
February 2006: Kelly’s brother, Carey Kelly, says his brother offered him $50,000 and a record deal to say he was the person on the sex video.
May 2008: Kelly’s child pornography trial begins. He is acquitted on all counts the next month after less than a full day of deliberations.
July 2017: BuzzFeed reports on parents’ claims that Kelly brainwashed their daughters and was keeping them in an abusive ‘cult.’ One woman says she was with Kelly willingly. Following the BuzzFeed report, activists launched the #MuteRKelly movement, calling for boycotts of his music.
April 2018: The Time’s Up campaign, devoted to helping women in the aftermath of sexual abuse, joins the #MuteRKelly social media campaign and pushes for further investigation into Kelly’s behavior, which had come under closer scrutiny over the previous year as women came forward accusing him of sexual coercion and physical abuse. Kelly´s camp responds: ‘We will vigorously resist this attempted public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture.’
May 2018: Spotify cuts R. Kelly’s music from its playlists, citing its policy on hate content and hateful conduct. Shortly after, Apple and Pandora also stop promoting his music. Kelly’s team pushes back, noting other artists on Spotify had been accused or convicted of crimes.
The same month Faith Rodgers, 20, files a lawsuit accusing R. Kelly of sexual battery, mental and verbal abuse, and knowingly inflicting her with herpes during a yearlong relationship.
January 2019: Lifetime airs the documentary ‘Surviving R. Kelly,’ which revisited old allegations against him and brought new ones into the spotlight. The series followed the BBC’s ‘R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes,’ released the previous year, that alleged the singer was holding women against their will.
Lady Gaga apologizes for her 2013 duet with Kelly, saying she intended to remove the song, ‘Do What U Want (With My Body),’ from streaming services.
Faith Rogers says Kelly had written a letter the previous October to one of her lawyers, threatening to reveal embarrassing details of her sexual history if she didn’t drop her May 2018 lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse.
Multiple media outlets reports Kelly and his label, Sony subsidiary RCA Records, part ways. Lady Gaga and Celine Dion remove their duets with Kelly from streaming services, and French rock band Phoenix apologizes for collaborating with Kelly in 2013. Kelly continues to deny all allegations of sexual misconduct.
February 2019: Attorney Michael Avenatti says he gave Chicago prosecutors new video evidence of Kelly having sex with an underage girl, and that it is not the same evidence used in Kelly’s 2008 trial.
Kelly is arrested and charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse. Kelly’s attorney enters not guilty pleas on the singer’s behalf. Hours later, Kelly posts bail and is released from jail in Chicago.
March 2019: CBS airs interview in which Kelly vehemently denied the sexual abuse charges against him. Later, authorities in Cook County take Kelly into custody after he tells a judge he couldn´t pay $161,000 in back child support he owed his children’s mother.
May 2019: Kelly is charged with 11 new sex-related counts in Chicago. They involve one of the women who accused him of sexually abusing her when she was underage.
July 2019: Kelly is indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago on charges including child pornography, enticement of a minor and obstruction of justice. A separate indictment filed in the Eastern District of New York included charges of racketeering, kidnapping, forced labor and the sexual exploitation of a child. He is again arrested in Chicago.
A federal judge orders Kelly held in jail without bond after a prosecutor warned he would pose an extreme danger to young girls if set free.
August 2019: Kelly pleads not guilty to federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing women and girls who attended his concerts, as his lawyers continue to label the alleged victims disgruntled ‘groupies.’
Kelly is charged in Minnesota with prostitution and solicitation related to an allegation that he invited a 17-year-old girl to his hotel room in 2001 and paid her $200 to dance naked with him.
October 2019: Kelly is denied bail in his New York City sex abuse case after a judge agreed with prosecutors that freeing him from jail would create a risk of him fleeing or tampering with witnesses.
December 2019: Kelly is charged by federal prosecutors with paying a bribe in exchange for a ‘fraudulent identification document’ for an unidentified female a day before he married R&B singer Aaliyah. He later pleads not guilty.
March 2020: Kelly pleads not guilty in Chicago to an updated federal indictment that included child pornography charges and allegations involving a new accuser, while prosecutors say more charges alleging yet another victim were upcoming.
August 2020: Federal prosecutors announce charges against three men accused of threatening and intimidating women who have accused R&B singer Kelly of abuse, including one man suspected of setting fire to a vehicle in Florida.
Kelly’s manager is arrested in California on charges that he threatened a shooting at a Manhattan theater two years ago, forcing an evacuation and the cancellation of the screening of a documentary addressing allegations that the singer had sexually abused women and girls.
July 2021: Federal prosecutors in Kelly´s sex trafficking case say he had sexual contact with an underage boy in addition to girls, and the government wants jurors in his upcoming trial to hear those claims.
August 2021: Kelly’s long-anticipated federal trial begins in New York with opening statements on August 18.
