Acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008, Kelly, 55, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy last year in New York federal court and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Now, a federal court in his hometown is considering yet another indictment, one that charges the disgraced “I Believe I Can Fly” singer with 13 counts of producing and receiving child pornography, soliciting minors to engage in criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to obstruct. justice. Also indicted are Kelly’s former associates Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, who are accused in an alleged scheme to buy back incriminating sex tapes taken from Kelly’s collection and cover up years of alleged sexual abuse. The panel of five men and seven women were released on Tuesday afternoon after deliberating for less than four hours without reaching a verdict and are expected to return on Wednesday morning to continue their deliberations. The jury began deliberating at about 1pm on Tuesday after more than eight hours of closing arguments over two days. Before deliberations began, Kelly’s attorney urged jurors in her closing arguments to put aside any preconceived notions they may have about the singer and see “the humanity” in him when discussing charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice. Jennifer Bonjean began her closing presentation to the jury by asking them to treat Kelly like a “John Doe,” as some of his accusers were, not what they might have heard about him in the news or at the office. “We’re really asking the impossible, aren’t we? Let’s put everything aside and decide this case based on what has been proven alone,” Bonjean said. Bonjean told jurors that much of the “unflattering evidence” presented about Kelly in the four-week trial had absolutely nothing to do with the charges, including allegations in lawsuits filed by an attorney with “R. Kelly’s lawsuit industry ‘, and reference to sex tapes featuring backup dancers, a baseball player’s wife ‘and even a man’. Bonjean said prosecutors “realize” the jury will rely on “labels like sexual predators” instead of the facts of the case, which was based on the testimony of liars and criminals and accusations that are “a quarter of a century old.” “It’s meant to make you lose your humanity for this person and prevent you from really looking at this evidence,” Bonjean said. “They want you to throw your hands up and go, ‘Ah, it’s R. Kelly. I want to go home and have dinner with my children. Let’s sign this guilty verdict.” Bonjean likened some of the witnesses in the case, many of whom received immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony, to finding a cockroach in your soup. “You don’t just throw out the cockroach and eat the soup,” Bonjean said. “You’re throwing away all the soup… There are too many cockroaches with these witnesses.” In her rebuttal Tuesday, however, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeannice Appenteng said the evidence was clear that Kelly was a serial sexual predator and that his co-defendants made the decision to help him cover it up to keep his career intact and line their pockets. . “What R. Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls,” Appenteng said. “And what the people around him wanted… they wanted to help their boss, including getting away from him.” Appendeng accused McDavid of repeatedly saying under oath when he testified last week that he believed Kelly’s denials of child sex abuse. McDavid conveniently removed himself “from situations” whenever it might have involved him, Appendeng said, including denying that he traveled to Kansas City to help retrieve a sex tape in which Kelly had a threesome with a minor and alleged that he could not see the video at the heart of Kelly’s 2008 trial — even though it was shown repeatedly on large public screens in court. He urged jurors not to buy “(McDavid’s) unbelievable, after-the-fact, made-up story,” particularly his claims that he was merely following the instructions of Kelly’s attorney, Edward Jenson, his entertainment attorney, Gerald Margolis, and the private detective .Jack Palladino — they’re all dead. “Don’t let him hide behind the supposed words of three dead people,” Appendeng said. “It’s time. Hold him accountable.” While Appenteng protested McDavid’s lack of credibility, his lawyers sat at the defense table shaking their heads. At one point, McDavid’s defense attorney, Bo Brindley, let out an exaggerated laugh. Appenteng also said the defense argued Kelly’s acquittal in that case as evidence of her innocence was a red herring because the conspiracy to keep the alleged victim, Kelly’s godmother, known at trial as “Jane,” from cooperating with law enforcement had worked. . “This jury was duped,” he said. “They were scammed by Robert Kelly and his fixers. The case was fixed because Robert Kelly, Derrell McDavid and others had Jane lie to the grand jury and absent herself from the trial.” In her closing, Bonjean said prosecutors were actually “getting some help from the co-defendants” in this case. Attorneys for both McDavid and Brown argued Monday that their clients did not know Kelly sexually abused “Jane” or other minors in the 1990s and 2000s. “In various ways throughout this trial there has been this undercurrent of, ‘Well, R. Kelly may have molested ‘Jane,’ or he may have molested young women, but we didn’t know anything about it,” Bonjean said. “You can’t think that.” Instead, Bonjean suggested that Kelly was the one in the dark. He was struggling with his own severe sexual abuse trauma on his way to becoming a superstar, he said, and was “someone who was completely unable to handle everything that came with it.” “He had to rely on other people to handle R. Kelly’s business,” Bonjean said. “And it was a lot of work.” As Bonzan spoke, Kelly clasped his hands together and looked down at the defense table. At times, his face mask was pulled under his chin, revealing a grim expression. Her argument was accompanied by a slideshow highlighting Bonjean’s points — including, memorably, a giant “Get Out Of Jail Free” Monopoly card with the head of martyr Charles Freeman attached to the cartoon jailbird’s body. And as Bonjean concluded, she flashed a slide with an urgent reminder in all caps: “EVERY SPEECH COUNTS!!!!” Bonjean spent much of her nearly two-hour argument talking about Kelly’s relationship with Jane and her family, which continued well beyond her alleged abuse as a minor and was sanctioned by her parents. “It’s an uncomfortable reality for the government,” Bonjean said. “Lives are complicated, and despite all the punches and rage, this family made a decision that they had to live with at the time.” Jane’s parents lied to the grand jury about her sexual relationship with the singer because they “didn’t care”, Bonjan said. “He was 17 and they didn’t care … They forgave it.” Bonjean noted that when the Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly” aired in early 2019, Jane contacted Kelly repeatedly, but he never tried to influence her in any way. “He changed his phone number,” she said. “Shut up on her. This is the most unconcerned person about obstruction I have ever seen.’ Bonjean also painted many of the women who accused Kelly of sexual abuse as liars and opportunists, particularly Lisa Van Allen, whom she called an extortionist and a thief. “She’s willing to frame men for, I don’t know, identity theft, sex trafficking. There is no crime this woman obviously won’t commit,” Bonjean said. Bonjean noted that one of the alleged victims, Brittany, never testified, even though prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that they would hear from her. “Brittany! Who is Brittany? Where is Brittany?” cried Bonzan. “We don’t know anything about her. … This is greed. This is greed on (prosecutors’) part and it’s not right.” Another alleged victim, Tracy, was also a liar, starting with telling jurors she was 16 when she met Kelly, when evidence showed she was 17, Bonjan said. Tracy also testified that Kelly forced her to have a threesome with Jane — which Bonjan suggested was false. “Everybody wants to claim a threesome with Jane,” Bonjan said, noting that the allegation was not included in her lawsuit against Kelly. As for the other alleged victims, Bonjean cited the time it took for charges to be filed and the fact that the indictment was filed at the height of the #MeToo movement. “Even though we’re in the age of faithful women, (and) I don’t disagree with that outside of the courtroom … there’s no place for that kind of mob thinking in a courtroom,” Bonjean said. In rebuttal, Appenteng urged the jury to pay particular attention to Jane’s testimony and the videotapes of her abuse. “You saw how (Kelly) used her body, bounced her, threw her around like she was a rag doll,” Appenteng says. “That’s what this case is.” “Who is at the center of this case? Kelly’s victims,” Appenteng said. “… They were children when he instructed them on how to please them sexually.” Across the room, Kelly shook his head slightly. His left leg suffered. Then he hung his head and shook it back and forth once more. The arguments came as Kelly’s trial enters its fifth week in Dirksen’s U.S. District Court. Jurors have heard from nearly three dozen witnesses since mid-August. Toward the end of closing arguments Monday, a juror informed authorities he had a panic attack and was unable to continue. Judge Harry Leinenweber dismissed her and…
