R. Kelly accuser says singer tried to blame her parents – East Bay Times

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By Maria Caspani | Reuters

NEW YORK A lawyer for R. Kelly tried on Wednesday to thwart allegations of a woman accusing the R&B singer of sexual abuse, showing letters she wrote to family members in which she accused her parents for having betrayed her.

Lawyer Deveraux Cannick asked the woman, known on the witness stand as Jane, to read letters in which she said her parents suggested that she lie to Kelly about her age and that they were trying to profit financially from her relationship with him.

In an undated letter to her brother, Jane said her mother would harass her to take pictures and videos of her and Kelly so that she could blackmail him, and urged her on. dress provocatively for the singer.

Now 23, Jane told prosecutors Kelly, 54, forced her and other young women to write the letters in order to protect him from possible legal problems.

The defendant would tell us exactly what to say, Jane said on her third day on the witness stand in Kelly’s sexual abuse trial in Brooklyn federal court.

Kelly, known for the Grammy-winning song I Believe I Can Fly, has pleaded not guilty to running a decades-long racketeering program in which he abused six women and girls, including Jane and the late singer. Aaliyah.

A few Kellys fans gathered outside the courthouse to show their support on Wednesday, and signs reading Free R Kelly were scrawled in brightly colored chalk on the sidewalk nearby.

Jane said she met Kelly at a music festival in Florida, then lived with him until the summer of 2019 and left him for good in October.

She said that when they first met, Kelly pressured her into having oral sex before granting her a singing audition.

Jane said she started meeting and having sex with Kelly on a regular basis in different cities.

She said her parents finally agreed to put her in the care of a woman Kelly knew so Jane could live with the singer in Chicago while virtually attending high school.

Later Wednesday Malak Benabdallah, a former high school friend of Jane’s, testified that Jane told her in text messages exchanged in 2015 that she had had sex with Kelly and that she thought she was pregnant. Prosecutors showed text messages between the two teens at the time, one containing baby bottle emojis.

Kelly also faces criminal charges related to sex in Illinois and Minnesota. Many accusations of sexual misconduct were discussed in the 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly.

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