NOT LOOKING TOO GOOD FOR OLE KELZ!!!!


Ex-aide says R. Kelly on sex tape with girl


CHILD PORNOGRAPHY TRIAL Woman: Teen brought overnight bag to studio

May 28, 2008Recommend (9)

BY ERIC HERMAN AND KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporters
The young girl who allegedly appears in a sex video with R. Kelly visited the R&B star's recording studio regularly, did her homework there and once brought an overnight bag, Kelly's former personal assistant testified Tuesday.

Lindsey Perryman, now a recording company executive, said she met the girl at Chicago Trax Recording Studio one night in 1999 as the girl arrived with her parents and brother.

Tuesday's highlights

* Raven Gengler, 22, identifies her childhood friend as the female on the sex tape and R. Kelly as the male. Gengler admits she told a detective she recognized voices on the tape -- though she hadn't seen the tape yet.

* Tjada Burnett, a friend of the alleged victim's family, identifies her and Kelly on the tape. Burnett says the girl got braces after the period when the tape was made.

* Lindsey Perryman, Kelly's former assistant, identifies Kelly and the girl on the tape and expresses "shock."

* Investigator Alexandra Guerrero testifies about photos of R. Kelly's basketball mural featuring the Tasmanian Devil and other cartoon characters.

* Bennie Edwards Jr. identifies the girl on the tape as a relative of his.
"She had a pillow and an overnight bag with her," Perryman said.

The girl "would come there after school and do her homework," Perryman said.

Prosecutors contend the girl appears in a 27-minute video depicting her engaged in sex acts with Kelly. The 41-year-old R&B singer is charged with child pornography and has pleaded not guilty.

The girl, born in 1984, would have been 14 for most of 1999. Prosecutors contend the tape was made between 1998 and 2000.

Perryman, 27, worked for Kelly off and on from 2000 to 2006. Her duties ranged from picking up meals to acting as liaison between the singer and his record label. Sometimes she would pick the girl up at school, she testified.

Perryman, who said she thinks "so highly of Mr. Kelly and his family," nonetheless identified the female in the videotape as the underage girl and the man on the tape as Kelly.

Under cross-examination by defense lawyer Marc Martin, Perryman admitted she could not identify either of them the first time she saw the tape.

"I was in shock. I wanted to be 100 percent sure" before making the identifications, Perryman said.

Earlier Tuesday, another witness seemed to confuse the prosecution's chronology by testifying the girl had braces on her teeth after the videotape was made.

Tjada Burnett, a friend of the alleged victim's family, said the alleged victim had braces after the time the sex tape was made.

But defense lawyer Sam Adam Jr. showed jurors a photo of the alleged victim -- looking younger than the one on the sex tape -- wearing braces.

Later Tuesday, prosecutors showed a 1998 music video featuring the alleged victim in which she has no braces. The girl appeared in the video while part of a singing group with other family members.

One member of the group, Bennie Edwards Jr., testified the female in the sex video "favored" his relative, and that the man "favored" Kelly. But under cross-examination, Edwards admitted he wasn't certain about the identifications.

Also Tuesday, state's attorney investigator Alexandra Guerrero testified about photographs she took of a mural in a basketball court at Kelly's former North Side home. Based on the movie "Space Jam," the mural shows Kelly playing basketball against the cartoon Tasmanian Devil while Michael Jordan referees. In the stands sit other Looney Tunes characters, including Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, and Foghorn Leghorn -- who holds a sign reading "Go R. Kelly!"

SOURCE:

R Kelly trial hears from Sparkle

Former backup singer implicates R. Kelly at trial

CHICAGO (AP) — A former backup singer for R. Kelly cried at his child pornography trial Thursday as she described introducing the R&B star to her relative, the alleged victim in the sex tape, at a Chicago music studio when the girl was 12 or 13.

"He liked her spirit. She was a very jolly person," Stephanie Edwards said.

She also leaned forward and identified the Grammy winner as the same man she saw on a sex tape at the center of the trial.

Before testifying, Edwards watched the videotape; during testimony she said she was sure her relative appeared on it having sex with Kelly.

"You know your blood ... you just know your family," she said.

The testimony is part of prosecutors' attempt to prove to the jury that the two people on the 27-minute homemade video are Kelly and the alleged victim. Both he and the female — now 23 years old — have denied they are in the footage.

Kelly, 41, is charged with 14 counts of child pornography for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Edwards, who was a background singer on one of Kelly's albums, testified that her relative was fond of Kelly and "took to him as a father figure."

Cross-examination of Edwards got heated, with the defense grilling her about a falling out she had with Kelly around 2000, two years after Kelly produced her debut album.

Defense attorney Ed Genson suggested Edwards — whose stage name is "Sparkle" — may have hatched a plot aimed at "getting Robert," referring to Kelly's given name.

"Of course not, " Edwards responded. "I was cool with Robert."

Genson and Edwards talked over each other at one point. Genson suggested Edwards may have tried to squeeze money out of the R&B superstar.

Edwards replied with a raised voice: "Sweetie, I'm not trying to get money out of this."
"I'm not your sweetie!" Genson shouted into a courtroom microphone, the room booming.
At that point, Judge Vincent Gaughan intervened and told both Edwards and Genson to calm down and stop talking over each other.

"This is a court of law," Gaughan said.

Earlier Thursday, a college student testified that she recognized both the female in the tape and Kelly, saying the female was a minor when the video was made.

Audrey Hampton testified Thursday she played basketball with the alleged victim and went to school with her for several years. She told the jury "there's no question" that the female on the tape is her childhood friend at age 13 or 14.

Hampton, a 23-year-old senior studying business marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, also said the alleged victim introduced her to Kelly at a party at a downtown Chicago basketball court. She said that rumors started to spread in her neighborhood about a sex tape with her friend in it.

Asked by a prosecutor how she recognized her friend, the witness said she recognized her face, voice, as well as some of her mannerisms in the tape, including "the way she licked the bottom of her lip."

Under cross-examination, Hampton conceded that she wouldn't be able to recognize her childhood friend's body.

Hampton's mother, Mary Kay Jerit, testified earlier in the day and said she found the sex tape in her daughter's room in early 2000. She said she viewed parts of it herself, and then threw the tape into the garbage.

Sam Adam Jr., one of Kelly's attorneys, asked Hampton and her mother if they handed over the tape to authorities that they suspected was child pornography. Both women conceded that they had not.

Adam has told the jury that neither Kelly nor the alleged victim are the two people on the tape.
Thursday's testimony followed an incident and the arrest of a 48-year-old woman who screamed "Free R. Kelly" at the jurors in the case as they stepped off an elevator near the courtroom.

Police immediately grabbed Debra Triplet and led her away in handcuffs. Gaughan later ordered her held on contempt charges in lieu of $50,000 bond.

Gaughan asked jurors before the proceedings if they'd heard what the woman had screamed. None of the jurors said they'd heard her, and testimony continued.

Source

R-rah has been positively identified in court. What will his fate be???

“Sitting on the witness stand, a 24-year-old woman named Simha Jamison told the court how she was able to identify the girl on the sex tape at the heart of R. Kelly’s child-pornography trial: They were best friends.

She also said the man on the tape is Kelly. Jamison testified that she and the girl had been best friends approximately since the summer after third grade. The two girls rode bikes, rollerbladed, played basketball and went shopping together when they hung out, which was ‘every day.’”

Source

Let's Get Ready To Ruuuuuuuuuuummmmble!!!! Kelz' trial will officially begin,Tuesday, May 20th!!!


A jury has been selected in R. Kelly’s child pornography trial:

Jury selection was completed at R.Kelly’s child pornography trial Thursday amid contentious exchanges between prosecutors and defense attorneys, who accused each other of trying to stack the panel along racial lines.

The jury consists of eight whites and four blacks. The four alternates are two blacks, one Hispanic and one white. Defense attorneys objected several times as prosecutors used challenges to have blacks dismissed from the jury pool.



SOURCE

I am officially coming out of "retirement"...lol, to post all of the latest on the R. Kelly trial. First up, Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan has unsealed the indictment against R&B crooner R. Kelly.

Kept from the public and the media since 2002, the indictment details the list of charges against the singer. At the beginning of Kelly's child pornography trial, which started on Friday, the judge unsealed the documents. Kelly has denied all charges against him.

Check out the indictment here

Souce: ESSENCE