 R Kelly: Jury adjourns child pornography case
R Kelly, the rap singer, at last, could get a sigh of relief. On Thursday prosecutors have wrapped up the child pornography case against R. Kelly.
Information about R Kelly’s news too has been grabbed by various media reporters. Defense attorneys stood on to their argument that the man having sex with an underage girl in the video is not R Kelly. To top it all, the girl who was seen in the video was also some one else.
On Thursday afternoon jurors have began deliberation that lasted till 6 p.m. Earlier in the day, this twenty seven minute video film has been displayed on a monitor just outside the jury's box. For creating perfect ambience within the court room, the lights were switched off and the blinds pulled across courtroom windows. This was followed by Robert Heilengoetter, the Assistant State's Attorney reading through sections of the 14-count indictment that has accused R Kelly of recording in a video the act of having sex with an underage girl.
Both R Kelly and the alleged victim have denied their presence in the video. Kelly even has pleaded not guilty and did not testify during the trial.
The situation has taken a twist when Heilengoetter told jurors that the man on the tape is none other than Kelly. This happened during the exhibition of the video on Thursday. "There, listen to his directions," Heilengoetter said. He is "directing her to dance, where to stand, when to stop urinating," added the source.
Defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. was very prompt in forwarding their counter attack. He vehemently denied the fact that forty one year old R Kelly has been featured in the film. According to him, the woman who was seen on the tape was a "professional prostitute" and not the alleged victim.
Adam insisted that if jurors were to believe the arguments of prosecutors and convict Kelly, they would also condemn the girl that they have alleged to be present on the video.
"In order to (find Kelly guilty), and I apologize for saying this, but you are going to have to call her 14 times, individually and collectively, a whore," said Adam to the jurors.
So far as R Kelly is concerned, he was present at the court. Sitting across the room from jurors at the defense table in a gray pinstripe suit, he folded his hands in front of him and tucked his brown shoes under his chair. When the sex tape was played, he appeared tense, and also kept his eyes on the monitor. Also his mouth appeared tight and his brow furrowed.
Pointing at R Kelly and describing the tape to be "vile and disgusting,” Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker was outright in making comments.
"The one person who is responsible is sitting right here," "What you know now is that this is not a whodunit, but a he-did-it," commented the State attorney.
Jurors, who got the case and deliberated for about three hours on Thursday afternoon, had seen the complete tape several times. For instance they have viewed excerpts during the weeks of testimony. They have also viewed it again on Thursday without the visible signs of apparent shock from the first time.
Without wasting much of their time, the jurors have sent a note to the judge asking for a transcript of the entire trial of R Kelly, or at least the testimony from Lisa Van Allen. Allen has testified that she got engaged in numerous three-way sexual encounters with Kelly and the alleged victim. A defense witness has testified his belief that Van Allen and her fiance wanted to extort money from Kelly.
Judge Vincent Gaughan sent a note back to the jury saying the transcripts were not yet available and to "please continue to deliberate," which they did until they adjourned.
While jurors took meticulous notes during testimony and have rarely took pause to take notes on Thursday. However they appeared to be rapt as they listened to Adam's animated and impassioned closing. His face frequently turned red and his voice occasionally approaching a yell, Adam pounded his index finger and fist on the jury box railing and made a reference to a defense argument that a mole on Kelly's back proved he simply can't be the man in the video.
With the display of a freeze frame on the man's back in video without any mole, Adam walked over to the defense table and placed his hand on Kelly's shoulder.
"The truth be told, there is no mole ... that means one thing," "It ain't him. And if it ain't him, you can't convict,"added Adam.
Drama related to R Kelly’s trial went on further. During seven days of case presentation, the prosecutors have called twenty two witnesses, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who have identified her as the female on the video. Some even went to the extent of saying that the alleged victim has referred R Kelly as her "godfather."
In just two days, the R Kelly’s lawyers have called twelve witnesses including 3 relatives of the alleged victim who testified that they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.
Adam also have told jurors that even the family members of the alleged victim who testified for prosecutors was not sure about her presence in the video.
"Any solid man in that family, any solid woman in that family would have gone over there and broken his legs, would have gone over there and beat the crap out of him if they believed she and Kelly were on the tape” added Adam.
He further commented that the family also would have given an order of protection against R Kelly but such thing did not happen.
However one prosecutor namely Heilengoetter, has put forth the argument that the relatives of the alleged victim were angry, citing testimony during which an aunt who was a one-time artistic collaborator with R Kelly has narrated how she introduced the singer to the alleged victim when the girl was around twelve or thirteen years old.
"You can imagine the betrayal that she felt toward the defendant," "This person that she introduced to her 12-year-old niece ... You could feel her outrage, couldn't you?" added Heilengoetter.
Another prosecutor, Boliker, later took the defense to task for suggesting conspiracies and extortion plots somehow account for the sex tape.
"All this innuendo and speculation is just that," commented Boliker.  |
News / Gossips by lorber69
