CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A prosecution witness used images of a lower back mole Thursday to link R. Kelly to a sex tape at the center of the R&B star's child pornography trial.

R. Kelly denies that he was the man featured on a videotape having sex with an underage girl.

The potentially damaging testimony came a week after the singer's own attorneys brought up the mole in their opening statements. A defense attorney argued then that because the man in the graphic 27-minute tape did not have a mole, that man could not be Kelly.

But on Thursday, video forensics expert Grant Fredericks froze several frames of the sex tape where a dark spot was visible on the man's back.For comparison, Fredericks showed the jury a still photo taken of Kelly's back after his arrest in 2002, revealing a dark, fingernail-sized mole.

"There is a mark on the man's back in the exact same position," Fredericks said, referring to the tape.
Kelly and his attorneys looked grim and dejected during the expert's testimony, but prosecutors looked pleased, appearing to smile as they sat at their courtroom table. Watch how guilt or innocence could come down to a mole »
Defense attorney Ed Genson grilled Fredericks in cross-examination, suggesting that the spot on the man's back in the video wasn't in the same place as the mole on Kelly's lower back.


At another point, Genson also said that a spot in the video faded in and out of view and could have been a technical imperfection on the tape.

Kelly, 41, is charged with child pornography for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with a girl who prosecutors say was as young as 13. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
In testimony earlier in the day, an FBI forensic expert testified that the male and female in a sex tape at the heart of the case weren't computer-generated or altered.

In more than an hour of highly technical analysis, George Skaluba said the video appears to depict "real people in a real environment."

The defense maintains that Kelly is not the man in the video and has repeatedly suggested that his likeness could have been computer-generated onto the 27-minute tape. The alleged victim, now 23, also has denied that she is on the video.

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