Back in 2002, a sex tape surfaced featuring R. Kelly and an underage girl; however, it took more than six years to get him into court on charges of child pornography and then it only took a few hours for a jury to declare him not guilty of all 14 counts. His high-powered defense team managed to convince the jury that the identity of the girl was not conclusive even though more than a dozen witnesses for the prosecution had identified her.
Robert Kelly is a very successful R&B singer/songwriter and music producer. Billboard called him the most successful R&B artist in the past 25 years. The Grammy winning star has sold 100 million records worldwide.
He has had several run-ins with the law beginning with his first marriage in 1994 to a 15 year old girl who lied on the marriage certificate.
After a July 1996 brawl at a Lafayette, Louisiana health club involving Kelly and his entourage, Kelly was placed on a year's unsupervised probation starting August 13, 1997, after being found guilty of battery. One of the victims, Christopher Mahoney, needed 110 facial stitches.
Also that year, 20-year-old Tiffany Hawkins sued Kelly for $10 million and accused him of having sexual relations with her when he was 24 and she 15. Kelly settled the lawsuit in 1998 for $250,000, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
On April 8, 1998, Kelly was arrested on three misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, including one charge on violating noise ordinance for playing his own music extremely loud from his car while singing along. All charges were later dropped.
On February 3, 2002, a video surfaced allegedly showing Kelly engaging in sex with, and urinating on, an underage girl. (This is the story reported at the top of the page). The story, which was released by an unknown source, was sent to the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper that broke the story on February 8, 2002.
This news surfaced as Kelly was to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics. In interviews with WMAQ television of Chicago and MTV News, Kelly said that he was not the man in the video. In June 2002, Kelly was indicted in Chicago on 21 counts of having sex with a minor, which were later reduced to soliciting a minor for child pornography, seven counts of videotaping the acts, and seven counts of producing child pornography.
That same month, authorities searched Kelly's house in Davenport, Florida. During the search officers also obtained pictures of an allegedly underage woman on a digital camera – wrapped in a towel in a duffel bag.!??? Kelly was arrested in January 2003 on those charges. In March 2004, these charges were dropped due to a lack of probable cause for the search warrants.
After a number of delays, on October 27, 2006, a Cook County, Illinois court hearing for pre-trial motions set the date of the actual trial to February 7, 2007. On the date of the trial, Kelly's lawyer informed the court that his client was unable to attend because he was "undergoing surgery for a burst appendix". He also announced that Kelly was "in good condition and was expected to be released from the hospital later in the day." Kelly's attorney stated that Kelly (who pleaded not guilty) would be in attendance on the next trial date of February 21, 2007.
It had previously been announced by the court that the videotape that allegedly showed Kelly performing sex acts with an underage woman would be publicly shown as evidence in the trial. The trial, however, was delayed due to disputes over when the tape was made and to give medical recuperation time to the sitting judge following a fall resulting in broken bones. Later the case was set for a September 17 date. It took more than six months for the case to go to trial.
Jury selection began on May 9, 2008, and the trial officially started on May 20 with opening statements from the prosecution and defense. After two weeks, the prosecution's case wrapped on June 3 while the defense's wrapped six days later, on June 9. After less than a day of deliberations, on June 13, 2008, a Chicago jury found Kelly not guilty of all 14 counts.
No wonder Kelly has no regard for the law, with his money he is not accountable to the law.
The moral of the story is - if you've got enough money you can find lots of lawyers without any conscience willing to take it.
He won't have any of those guys with him when he stands before the glorified Christ!
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