Accuser’s mom: R Kelly’s threats made her fear for her life

CHICAGO (AP) — A mom whose daughter prosecutors say R. Kelly sexually abused beginning when she was 14 advised jurors Monday on the singer’s federal trial that she lied to a state grand jury 20 years in the past, partly as a result of she and her husband felt threatened by Kelly and feared for his or her lives in the event that they advised the reality.

The mother, who used the pseudonym, “Susan,” in courtroom on the trial in Chicago, described how she, her husband and Kelly had been crying when the mother and father confronted the Grammy-winner at a lodge within the early 2000s about whether or not he was abusing their daughter. She testified they had been startled when Kelly advised them, “You might be with us or towards us.”

She stated she took these phrases to imply “that they had been going to hurt us if we didn’t do what they needed us to do.” Among the many directives from Kelly and an affiliate was that they needed to lie that their daughter was not in a toddler pornography video and that they needed to depart the nation instantly for a number of weeks, she testified.

“We had been very, very frightened,” she advised jurors.

She added later that she lied to the grand jury “as a result of we feared for our lives and we had been intimidated.” She stated she additionally feared for the well-being of her daughter, who warned her mother and father on the time that she would possibly commit suicide in the event that they refused to do what Kelly requested them to do.

Kelly, 55, is on trial in his hometown on fees that embody manufacturing of kid pornography, engaging minor women for intercourse and obstruction justice by efficiently rigging his 2008 baby pornography trial in state courtroom, at which he was acquitted.

Kelly is already watching a 30-year jail sentence imposed by a federal decide in New York in June for his 2021 convictions on racketeering and intercourse trafficking fees.

Susan’s daughter, who glided by the pseudonym “Jane,” was among the many prosecution’s first witnesses because the trial started final week. Jane advised jurors that she additionally lied to the identical grand jury previous to 2008 trial when she stated she was not the 14-year-old woman in a video with Kelly. Jane, now 37, advised jurors final week that, actually, she had been sexually abused a whole bunch of instances by Kelly earlier than she had turned at 18.

On Monday, in an usually contentious cross-examination, Kelly legal professional Jennifer Bonjean repeatedly questioned Susan about whether or not she really felt her life was in any hazard from Kelly or his associates.

“Nobody truly threatened you, did they?” Bonjean requested.

“Sure, they did,” Susan answered.

Bonjean additionally requested why, if Susan felt so threatened by Kelly, she and her household continued to combine with Kelly socially for the following 20 years. She answered that Kelly was their sole revenue for a interval, paying her musician husband to work on Kelly recordings. She additionally stated she fearful about Jane’s welfare in the event that they lower ties with Kelly.

The husband, Jane’s father, died final yr, she advised jurors.

Throughout her cross, Bonjean highlighted Susan’s testimony that she lied to the Illinois grand jury, asking if she was “telling the reality now.” Susan stated she was.

Prosecutors from the Prepare dinner County state’s legal professional’s workplace selected within the mid-2000s to push forward with fees and to take the case to trial in 2008 regardless of what they knew was a significant hurdle: their incapability to name the woman within the video to testify.

After acquitting Kelly within the 2008 trial, some jurors advised reporters that that that they had no alternative however to seek out Kelly not responsible as a result of the woman — who by then was in her 20s — didn’t take the witness stand to substantiate it was, actually, her within the video.

Federal prosecutors on the present trial performed excerpts of that and different movies they are saying present Kelly when he was round 30 sexually abusing a 14-year-old Jane.

Kelly has been trailed for many years by allegations about his sexual conduct. The scrutiny intensified throughout the #MeToo period and following the 2019 launch of the Lifetime tv docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”

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Comply with Michael Tarm on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mtarm and discover AP’s full protection of the R. Kelly trial at https://apnews.com/hub/r-kelly.