R&BR singer Kelly was convicted of six of 13 counts in a trial involving child abuse images.
In his hometown of Chicago, the singer is charged with 13 counts – including producing child abuse images, soliciting a minor to have sex and rigging a 2008 trial for sexual abuse. child education.
Kelly and Derrel McDavid, the singer’s former business executive, are accused of fixing Kelly’s 2008 trial on state child pornography charges by threatening and paying witnesses.
The jurors began deliberations on Tuesday after hearing weeks of testimonies and watching parts of an apparent video where one of Kelly’s accusers, Jane, said she was 14 years old with the R&B singer.
Kelly, who is known for her hit hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and sexually explicit songs like “Bump n’ Grind,” has sold millions of albums even after abuse allegations began. spread in the 1990s.
Widespread outrage emerged after the #MeToo calculation and 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly.
Kelly, 55, was convicted in New York of fraud and sex trafficking and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in June.
‘Cockroaches in soup bowl’
On Tuesday, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean told jurors that key government witnesses who had been admitted as liars testified with immunity to ensure they could not be charged.
At times expressing indignation and raising their voices, Bonjean likened their testimony and other evidence to a cockroach and the government case to a bowl of soup.
If a cockroach falls into the soup, she said, “you don’t just pull the cockroach out and eat the rest of the soup. You throw out the whole soup,” the juror said.
“There are too many cockroaches,” she said of the prosecution’s case.
