This archive report was first published on 17 July 2019.
On July 12, 2019, R. Kelly stood in a federal courtroom in Chicago, wearing an orange jumpsuit and ankle shackles, as he pleaded not guilty to numerous state and federal charges, including sexual assault, obstruction of justice, child pornography, and racketeering.
According to a federal indictment, Kelly had victimized 12 women, at least eight of whom were underage at the time of the incidents. Prosecutors said he had paid the girl and her father to stay quiet and, in some cases, to lie to investigators to protect him.
One of the 12 women was the girl at the center of Kelly's 2008 trial, but until July 16, 2019, it was not publicly known whether she would cooperate or whether prosecutors would try to prove she had been a victim by relying on witnesses who knew her.
However, in a dramatic turn of events, a lawyer for the girl, now a woman in her 30s, said on Tuesday that she was cooperating with federal investigators. The extent of her cooperation was not immediately clear, but the statement from her lawyer, Christopher L. Brown, came just days after Kelly was accused in a federal indictment of paying the girl and her father to stay quiet.
Angel Krull, a federal prosecutor, said on Tuesday that, if convicted, Kelly would face a maximum of 195 years in prison and that investigators had 'identified many more girls' beyond the 12 that he may have abused.
Mr. Kelly was known to record his sexual encounters, and during his 2008 trial, expert witnesses for the prosecution said that the tape was a copy, but that it had not been tampered with. Fourteen witnesses identified the girl in the video, who was believed to be around 14 at the time it was made.
