Daywatch: There were plenty of surprises in the prosecution’s case against R. Kelly. But will any spell acquittal?
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Good morning, Chicago.
High-profile federal conspiracy trials like the one unfolding in Chicago against disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly don’t typically have many made-for-TV bombshells.
By the time the curtain raises, evidentiary issues have largely been worked out. Prosecutors have put forth in detail what they expect their witnesses to say. Defense attorneys have raised their pretrial objections and counterpunch according to the judge’s rulings.
But Kelly’s case hasn’t quite gone by that familiar script.
Instead, there have been several surprises during the two weeks that prosecutors put on their case, which featured 25 witnesses and physical evidence including travel records, private investigator contracts and graphic excerpts of three videotapes purportedly showing Kelly sexually abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter.
But perhaps the biggest surprise came when a key witness tying Kelly and two co-defendants to an alleged conspiracy to buy back sex tapes told the jury last week that the videotape he was given by former Kelly girlfriend Lisa Van Allen appeared to be a threesome between consenting adults, not child pornography.
Read more about the R. Kelly case from Jason Meisner and Megan Crepeau.
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