R. Kelly and his team ‘did their best’ to cover up singer’s predatory behavior, prosecutors say

CHICAGO — Prosecutors in R. Kelly’s federal child pornography and conspiracy trial began closing arguments Monday by reminding jurors of their strongest evidence against the singer: The multiple videos they viewed showing Kelly abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter, “Jane.”

“Kelly and his team, they did their level best … to cover up the fact that Robert Kelly, R. Kelly the R&B superstar, is actually a sexual predator. They did their best, but in the end, they failed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Pozolo said. “We are here today because those tapes that they concealed for 20 years are no longer their secret. You have seen the tapes. You have seen what Kelly did to Jane.”

Attorneys began their arguments after four weeks of evidence and testimony, and the presentations promise to be fiery as well as lengthy. Arguments from prosecutors as well as lawyers for Kelly and former associates Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown are expected to last all day and could even spill into Tuesday, when jury deliberations are set to begin.

Kelly, McDavid and Brown allegedly worked together to cover up evidence of Kelly’s abuse of Jane, especially while Kelly was facing Cook County child pornography charges for one of the videos at issue in this trial. He was acquitted on those charges, in part because he pressured Jane and her family to lie, according to prosecutors.

Pozolo reminded jurors in explicit detail about what they saw on those videos back during the first week of trial.

“That child, who had no prior sexual experiences in her life, was forced to lay on that floor while that man sitting right over there urinated on her. That degrading act is forever captured on that video,” she said. “That abuse is forever memorialized. ... Who does that? Who uses a 14-year-old child to film a video like this? This man. Robert Kelly.”

The defendants rested their cases Friday afternoon. While prosecutors had hoped to call witnesses in rebuttal — particularly Kelly’s former manager Barry Hankerson — U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber said they could not call any witnesses who were not ready to go immediately Friday afternoon.

Leinenweber is “under pressure” to move things along quickly, he said when prosecutors asked to briefly present witnesses Monday. “Either do it today or not.”

Leinenweber also denied prosecutors’ request to prohibit defense attorneys from quoting from trial transcripts during closing arguments.

“Use of transcripts during closing is likely to skew or displace the jurors’ independent recollections of testimony and other evidence at trial, creating a reliance of the portions quoted rather than their memory of the evidence in whole,” they wrote over the weekend.

In a joint response, attorneys for all three defendants shot back, saying such a prohibition “would amount to hiding the truth from the jury and, in turn, usurping them of their truth-seeking function.”

“It has taken over three years, but (it) seems that the government has finally come to the realization that their case is based on the stories of liars, con artists, and extortionists whose word cannot be trusted,” they wrote.

Kelly, 55, faces an indictment charging him with 13 counts of producing and receiving child pornography, enticing minors to engage in criminal sexual activity, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. McDavid and Brown are accused alongside him in an alleged scheme to buy back incriminating sex tapes that had been taken from Kelly’s collection and to hide years of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls.

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