Court officials said R. Kelly’s child pornography trial could officially begin next Friday, six years after it was delayed in June 2002. It appears that a woman is due to testify at the upcoming trial that she had a three-way sexual encounter with the R&B star and the allegedly underage girl shown in the footage at the heart of the case.

R. Kelly, 41, is accused of videotaping himself having sex with a girl estimated to be 13. The case had dragged on for six years without a trial and had originated with 21 counts of child pornography filed against Kelly in 2002. Seven of the charges were dropped due to statute of limitations, but the R&B singer still faces 14 of the charges. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to the charges and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors claim they identified the girl in the videotape, who is now in her 20s. “She [the witness] was involved in a threesome with [the girl] and R. Kelly,” a source said, according to Chicago Sun-Times. Kelly’s defense attorneys declined to comment.

Kelly’s trial and the hearings will be closed to the media. In papers filed Friday with the Illinois Supreme Court, the singer’s lawyers mentioned they opposed news media requests for more access to Kelly’s high-profile case, the Chicago Tribune reported in its online edition.

“Leakage of any inadmissible and/or prejudicial evidence right before jury selection would impinge on the right to a fair trial,” the defense response stated, according to the same source. “That would be unfair to Mr. Kelly.”