The Chicago jury hearing the case of State of Illinois vs. Robert Sylvester Kelly has found R&B sensation R. Kelly not guilty on all counts. Unbelievable but true, R. Kelly has been acquitted of all 14 charges in his infamous child-pornography and golden shower case. It took the jurors less than a day of deliberation to find R. Kelly not guilty. To recap: R. Kelly fucks an underage 13 year old girl, R. Kelly films it all, R. Kelly taken to trial, R. Kelly found not guilty. I dare you to find a sentence that makes less sense than that. The AP reports:
Prosecutors had argued that a video tape mailed to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002 showed Kelly engaged in graphic sex acts with a girl as young as 13 at the time. Both Kelly, 41, and the now 23-year-old alleged victim had denied they were the ones on the tape. Neither testified during the trial.
Just so we're clear, if you're a celebrity and you want to cut off the head of your wife and stab her friend to death or piss on a 13-year old girl and fuck her on videotape, go for it. Hey man, no worries! Live life to the fullest! TMZ reports:
A jury has found R. Kelly not guilty! A jury acquitted the singer of all fourteen counts of child pornography. The "Bump and Grind" singer was first charged six years ago after the kinky sex tape surfaced allegedly featuring him having sex -- among other things -- with a girl who was as young as 13 at the time."
The morons who didn't convict Kelly blame the victim for her lack of participation in the trial.
After the trial was over, jurors spoke to the press about their decision, explaining that though they thought Kelly was on the tape, they were unsure of the girl's identity. "We were uncertain as to the female, and the absence of her was a major lack in the case," juror #23 said."
R. Kelly thanked the jurors then asked if there was a junior high nearby. He drank way too much water waiting for the verdict, and you know how it goes. blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
R. Kelly was acquitted of all charges Friday after less than a day of deliberations in his child pornography trial, ending a six-year ordeal for the R&B superstar and the alleged victim.
A visibly stunned Kelly, who was charged in 2002 in a case beset by delays, dabbed tears from his face with a handkerchief and hugged each of his four attorneys right after the verdict was read. The Grammy award-winning singer had faced 15 years in prison if convicted.
"All I heard (from Kelly) while those 14 verdicts were being read was 'Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,'" said Sam Adam Jr., one of his attorneys. During the 10 minutes it took to read the lengthy verdicts, Kelly kept his head down and eyes shut tight — barely moving and clutching the hands of his flanking attorneys.
Minutes later, surrounded by bodyguards, he left the courthouse without comment. Dozens of fans screamed and cheered as he climbed into a waiting SUV.
Prosecutors had argued that a video tape mailed to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002 showed Kelly engaged in graphic sex acts with a girl as young as 13 at the time. Both Kelly, 41, and the now 23-year-old alleged victim had denied they were the ones on the tape. Neither testified during the trial.
"Robert said all along that he believed in our system and he believed in God — and that when all the facts came out in court, he would be cleared of these terrible charges," according to a statement from his publicist, Allen Mayer. "But he never dreamed it would take six and a half years. This has been a terrible ordeal for him and his family and at this point all he wants to do is move forward and put it behind him."
Jurors — who deliberated for three hours Thursday after closing arguments and for about four hours on Friday — said they remained sharply divided through Friday morning. A vote they took just a few hours before the acquittal had seven jurors voting not guilty and five voting guilty.
Members of the panel said the prosecution was weakend because neither the alleged victim nor her parents testified. But the real key was the woman herself: One juror said he just was not sure the female was who prosecutors said she was — or that she was a minor when the tape was made. blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
Another said that while he was convinced it was Kelly on the tape, he had doubts about the female. "What we had wasn't enough," said the juror, who declined to give his name.
Prosecutors relied in part on a star witness who said she engaged in three-way sex with Kelly and the girl. Defense attorneys claimed she sought hundreds of thousands of dollars from Kelly in exchange for her silence.
Over seven days, the state called 22 witnesses, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who identified her as the female on the video.
In just two days, Kelly's lawyers called 12 witnesses. They included three relatives of the alleged victim who testified they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.
Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Shauna Boliker said she still believed the female on the tape was a victim, not a prostitute — as the defense had contended.
"This shows the world how difficult this crime is to prosecute," she said. "It also takes the soul of the victim, the heart of the victim."
Kelly won a Grammy in 1997 for "I Believe I Can Fly," and is known for such raunchy hits as "Bump N' Grind," "Ignition," and for "Trapped in the Closet," a multipart saga about the sexual secrets of an ever-expanding cast of characters.
Despite his legal troubles, Kelly — who rose from poverty on Chicago's South Side to become a star singer, songwriter and producer — still retains a huge following, and his popularity has arguably grown in recent years.
The singer has released more than half a dozen albums, most of them selling over a million copies. His new song, "Hair Braider," is out now, and he's due to release a new album in July.
Kelly, always meticulously dressed in a suit and tie, appeared tense at times during the trial, furrowing his brow. He seemed particularly ill at ease when prosecutors played the sex tape in open court after opening arguments.
In the video, entered into evidence as "People's Exhibit No. 1," a man has sex with a young female, who is naked for most of the recording. She is often blank-faced. The man speaks to her in a hushed voice, and she calls him "Daddy."
In one scene, alluded to in one count of the indictment, the man urinates on the female.
The issue of whether there was or wasn't a fingernail-sized mole on the man's lower back was a subject of hours of testimony. A defense witness told jurors there was no mole on his back, proving it's not Kelly, who has such a mole. But a prosecution witness displayed freeze frames of the video where a dark spot seemed to appear as the man turns to take off his pants.
Jurors later said the issue of whether Kelly had a mole was not a decisive factor.
Cross examination was often heated. Several witnesses cried on the stand.
The star prosecution witness, Lisa Van Allen, became teary eyed as she told jurors she engaged in several three-way sexual encounters with Kelly and the alleged victim, including once on a basketball court. Kelly videotaped the trysts, she said, and used to carry a duffel bag stuffed full of his homemade sex tapes. blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
The defense called several witnesses in a bid to discredit Van Allen, accusing her of trying to extort money from Kelly. Under cross-examination, Van Allen admitted she once stole Kelly's $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.
The sex tape was played in its entirety after opening arguments and during closing arguments on Thursday. But jurors — nine men and three women — said they didn't watch the whole video again in deliberations.
"I've seen that videotape way too many times," one juror, a woman in her 20s, told reporters Friday. "The first time was one too many."
Kelly, whose given name is Robert, cried and repeatedly whispered "thank you Jesus" after each not guilty finding was announced in the 14-count case, according to his lawyer. If found guilty, he could have faced a 15-year prison term.
The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated about six hours over two days before delivering the verdict. The 14 counts referred to specific acts depicted in the tape.
Minutes after the verdict was announced in Cook County Criminal Court, a red-eyed Kelly, 41, strode out of the courthouse via a barricaded entrance without a word to reporters or fans screaming his name.
He waved and climbed into a sport utility vehicle with tinted windows.
Two teenage girls ran through a hallway in the venerable Chicago courthouse screaming, "He's not guilty!"
The 26-minute videotape that was the focus of the case featured oral sex, masturbation and other explicit acts and was handed over to police by a Chicago newspaper reporter in 2002. It had circulated widely on the underground video market.
Kelly also did not testify, and his attorneys argued that he was the victim of an extortion plot.
He has previously settled at least two civil suits involving women who said they were underage when he had sex with them. He married R&B singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was 15, but the marriage was quickly annulled. She died in a plane crash seven years later.
Other Landfair family members testified for the defense that neither she nor Kelly were the people on the tape. A video expert said the tape could have been doctored, a claim an expert for the prosecution dismissed as impossible. blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
"The No. 1 thing that took hold with this jury was that it was not Roshona," said Sam Adam, another of Kelly's attorneys.
Some of the jurors who met with reporters agreed with that assessment, saying that while most believed Kelly appeared in the videotape, they doubted the girl's identity.
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Robert Sylvester Kelly (born January 8, 1967) better known by his stage name R. Kelly, is an American R&B and pop singer, songwriter and record producer. Debuting in 1992 with the group Public Announcement, Kelly left the group within a year for a successful solo career starting with the album, 12 Play (1993). Since then, Kelly has been known for a collection of hit singles including "Bump N' Grind", "I Believe I Can Fly", "Ignition" and the urban hip-hopera "Trapped in the Closet". blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
On June 6, 2002, Kelly was indicted on 21 counts of having sexual intercourse with a minor. These were later reduced to soliciting a minor for child pornography, for which he was acquitted on June 13, 2008.In 1996, Kelly released one of his most successful singles with "I Believe I Can Fly", originally released on the Space Jam soundtrack. The single, which came up after the movie's star Michael Jordan asked Kelly to compose a song for the soundtrack, was composed while Kelly was on a tour with The Notorious B.I.G. "I Believe I Can Fly" reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the UK pop charts. The single was a huge worldwide success and remains Kelly's signature song. Rolling Stone Magazine named it as the 408th of its top 500 songs of all time. Building on the hype of "Fly", Kelly released a double album simply titled R. That album would become Kelly's biggest-selling album to date selling over eight million copies according to the RIAA and Soundscan and yielded the popular singles, "I'm Your Angel" (featuring Celine Dion) and "When a Woman's Fed Up". In between and afterwards, Kelly found some success with movie themes such as "Gotham City" from Batman Forever, "Bad Man" from Shaft and "The World's Greatest" from Ali. In 2000, Kelly released TP-2.com, which yielded the hits "I Wish" and the remix to "Fiesta", which included a collaboration with Jay-Z. Because of the success of that song and another Kelly/Jay-Z collaboration, "Guilty 'Til Proven Innocent", from Jay-Z's Dynasty album, it was announced in early 2002 that the duo collaborated on a joint album and tour titled The Best of Both Worlds. Due to controversy surrounding Kelly at the time, there was little promotion with the album when it was finally released and Kelly instead refocused his attention on his solo work as both a recording artist and producer.
During late 2001 and early 2002, Kelly began working on the follow up to his album TP-2.com entitled Loveland. The album was scheduled to be released in November 2002, but like Best of Both Worlds before it, heavy bootlegging led to it being delayed. The singer then retooled the whole album titled the Chocolate Factory did feature several of the bootlegged tracks - and many have cropped up elsewhere, as seen below. it also came as a six track bonus disc with the initial pressings of Chocolate Factory (Bootlegged tracks are listed in this footnote).
Chocolate Factory became a runaway success for Kelly, selling over three million copies due to the success of singles such as "Ignition", "Snake" and "Step in the Name of Love". Capitalizing on the success of the latter track, in 2004 Kelly released the ambitious two-disc set, Happy People/U Saved Me, with the former side covering the same basis and sound from "Step..." while focusing on inspirational material on the latter. That same year, Kelly performed the Star-Spangled Banner during the introduction of the world championship boxing fight between Bernard Hopkins and Jermain Taylor. His performance, which included a line of dancers doing the "stepping" routine and a pre-recorded instrumental track set to the sound of "Happy People", was met with a mixed reaction. In October of 2004, Kelly reunited with Jay-Z to do a follow-up to their Best of Both Worlds album shortly after announcing a tour to coincide with the project after the duo performed together during Jay-Z's "farewell" concert at Madison Square Garden a year before. The duo's Unfinished Business album was released and peaked at number-one on the Billboard chart. blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
None of the prior reports reached the level of publicity that followed the release of a video tape in February 2002 that allegedly showed Kelly and a 14-year-old daughter of an associate, and niece of Sparkle, a former Kelly protégée, engaging in sex. The tape, released by an unknown source, was sent to the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper that broke the story. While witnesses have identified the alleged victim, the girl and her parents have denied that she is the person shown on the tape. Kelly has also denied that he is the man in the video.
Bootleg copies of that tape became widely available on the black market and over file sharing networks. The tape was alleged to show numerous sex acts, including the girl being urinated upon. In June 2002, Kelly was indicted in Chicago for 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. These charges came after viewing the tapes showed that there was no actual sexual intercourse involved. blogywoodbabes.blogspot.com
It took more than six years 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 13th 2008 a Chicago jury found R. Kelly not guilty of all 14 counts of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl.
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