CHICAGO - R. Kelly produced and starred in a "vile, disturbing and disgusting" sex video with an underaged girl, prosecutors told a jury today.But lawyers defending the Grammy Award-winning artist said the 26-minute tape shows neither Kelly nor his alleged victim, and where the video came from remains a mystery.The exchanges came in the opening statements of Kelly's trial on 14 counts of videotaping, producing or soliciting child pornography. If convicted of all charges, the 41-year-old performer, whose given name is Robert Kelly, could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.The tape at the center of the case was to be shown in court."You will see the sex acts he commands her to do," Shauna Boliker of the Cook County state's attorney's office told the jury. "Acts you have never seen before. Vile, disturbing and disgusting sex acts, actions that were choreographed, produced and starred in by Robert Kelly," she said."The case will unfold before you frame by disgusting frame," she added, with the girl "doing what she's told. There's no feeling in her face. It is clear she is an underaged girl" whom Kelly met when she was 12.
Prosecutors say the tape was made between January 1998 and November 2000, when she was 13 or 14.Boliker told the jury that the girl - now in her 20s - will not testify for the prosecution. She has said it is not her on the tape and refused to testify against Kelly, but she may be called as a defence witness, court records indicate.'Copy of a copy of a copy'"Robert Kelly is not on that tape," said defence lawyer Sam Adam Jr., nor is the alleged victim."Where does this tape comes from? They don't know," he said. "There isn't an original of this tape. The tape you're going to see here is at best a copy of a copy of a copy of the original."Adam said the FBI reviewed the tape, which was turned over to police by the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002, and the agency concluded that they could not identify Kelly as being on the tape."It has gone through five or six generations and there are no identifying marks," he added.He said police took pictures of Kelly's body stripped to his undershorts that show a "significant mole" on his lower back, implying that the tape does not show a man with a mole in that spot.The trial before Judge Vincent Gaughan of the Cook County Criminal Court got underway six years after Kelly was charged. The jury consists of men and women, black and white, and the trial may last up to seven weeks.The accusations prompted some radio stations to stop playing Kelly's songs, but it did not derail his career. He has earned millions of dollars from concert tours and album sales while being free on $750,000 bond.After singing for change on Chicago subway platforms, Kelly shot to fame in the early 1990s with hits like Sex Me and Bump n' Grind.The carnality of his early lyrics gave way to wholesomeness with the 1996 single I Believe I Can Fly which earned Kelly three Grammy Awards. He has received 20 Grammy nominations.- REUTERS
