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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.”
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