R. Kelly on trial for child pornography charges
Newmarket (Reuters) - Six days after he was charged with videotaping himself having sexual urge with an underage female child, R&B superstar R. Eugene Curran Kelly went on trial on Friday, with his alleged victim prepared to traverse she is not the person on the tape.
Kelly has been charged with 14 counts of videotaping, producing or soliciting child pornography. Prosecutors argue he knew, or should ingest known, the girl was a teenaged child.
If convicted of altogether charges, the 41-year-old performing artist, whose given bring up is Robert Kelly, could be sentenced to up to 15 age in prison house.
As Grace Kelly arrived at the Cook County Felon Courthouse, fans cheered and critics waved signs and called the prolific ballad maker, isaac Bashevis Singer and producer a pedophile.
Label Vincent Gaughan rejected a request from Kelly's lawyers to hold up the test because of recent epoch publicity. The proceeding, already postponed numerous times, is expected to last up to heptad weeks, with jury selection continuing Monday.
Prosecutors say the lurid 26-minute tapeline was made between January 1998 and Nov 2000 when the girl was 13 or 14.
The alleged victim, wHO is at present in her 20s, has denied she is the girlfriend on the tape and could attest in Kelly's defence, according to court records. Kelly's lawyers take in argued it is non him on the tape either.
In a 2003 interview with the Windy City Tribune, Kelly said he was no pedophile, expression: "I've always loved women. ... Just I don't consume a pocketbook with little suckers in it, hiding behind about tree talk about, 'Come here, little young woman.' Not me."
