Prosecutors showed tapes that Jane testified showed Kelly having sex with her. At times, Jane began to cry during her time on the stand.
“How old were you when the sexual acts depicted in these recordings took place?” asked Assistant US Attorney Jeannice Appenteng.
“14,” declared Jane, who is expected to take the stand again on Friday.
She testified that Kelly began having sex with her when she was 14 and had sex with her when she was 15 “hundreds” of times before she turned 18.
Jane is one of five minors that prosecutors allege Kelly sexually abused in the late 1990s, making explicit videos with four of them. Kelly faces charges including producing and receiving child pornography, enticing minors to engage in criminal sexual activity and obstruction charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Among her co-defendants is Derrel McDavid, a former business manager and accountant for the singer, who faces charges of child pornography and obstruction. Milton “June” Brown, Kelly’s former assistant, faces a charge of conspiracy to receive child pornography. McDavid and Brown have pleaded not guilty.
An attorney for Kelly asked jurors during opening statements Wednesday to consider why Jane is coming forward now and changing her testimony from two decades ago.
“For 22 years, she has flatly denied that it was her in that video. Before there was any criminal investigation, she denied it. She denied it repeatedly to prosecutors, she denied it to social workers to the police. She denied it. under oath to a grand jury,” Jennifer Bonjean said Wednesday.
On the witness stand Thursday, Jane said she was testifying under immunity because she lied under oath to a 2002 grand jury about her sexual relationship with Kelly and whether she appeared in explicit video recordings with him.
“If I correct my mistakes by telling the truth, I won’t be prosecuted,” Jane said.
“Why did you lie?” Appenteng asked Jane at another time.
“Because I was afraid of exposing Robert. Because I was afraid of what might happen to my parents,” she said. “I didn’t want that person to be me either.”
A family connection
As a teenager, Jane traveled the world with a Christian hip-hop group whose members were her cousins. Prosecutors asked him not to name the group to protect their identity.
“I was living my dream,” declared Jane.
Her aunt, known professionally as Sparkle, worked with and was romantically involved with R. Kelly. It was Sparkle who introduced Jane to Kelly when Jane was 12 or 13 at a gospel concert for her church, she testified. Weeks later, Kelly came to one of his group’s concerts.
“I was telling myself what a great job I did,” declared Jane. “I felt successful. I felt happy.”
Soon after they met, Jane said she started spending more time with Kelly and Sparkle. I would watch Kelly and Sparkle record music and talk about basketball and music with Kelly. Jane stated that she was 13 when Sparkle suggested that Jane ask Kelly to play a bigger role in her life.
“She told me I should ask him to be my godfather.” Sparkle is expected to testify later in the trial.
Jane said Kelly “laughed” and agreed to be her godfather, and within weeks, their relationship turned sexual. Kelly was talking to her on the phone and asked, “What color panties are you wearing?” and “about my breasts growing” and that “I have to wear bras,” Jane stated.
When Kelly became her godfather, Jane testified that her parents were comfortable letting her spend the night or even the weekend at their house, without her parents or aunt present.
“They would pretty much leave me and then leave,” Jane declared.
Recordings of sexual acts
Jane testified that she was 14 when Kelly’s sexual comments turned into actions. She said Kelly began touching her breasts and vaginal area while touching each other one night when they were in her recording studio. The touching, she testified, quickly turned into oral sex and other sexual acts, and she lost her virginity to him when she was 15.
Jane spoke softly as Appenteng asked her to describe an act shown on a video.
“What part of your body did you pee on?” Appenteng asked.
“My vagina,” Jane said quietly.
Bonjean and a lawyer for McDavid have repeatedly objected to prosecutors admitting the tapes into evidence. They contested the authenticity of the videos and the chain of custody through which the videos have been transferred in the 20 years since they appeared. Retired Chicago police detective Daniel Everett, who investigated one of the tapes in 2002, testified Thursday that he did not know the whereabouts of the original VHS tape with several recordings.
“I don’t know where he is today,” Everett declared.
Jane testified that after the recordings were made, they were sometimes kept in a gym bag or in a wood-paneled room in Kelly’s old house that she called the “log cabin” area. Sometimes he saw Brown carrying the bag full of recordings, he testified.
Prosecutors did not play the recordings in court Thursday, but warned jurors during opening statements that they will play during the trial parts of the videos that are “difficult to watch.”
Lying to the authorities
When the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services began investigating an allegation that Kelly had a sexual relationship with Jane in April 2000 when she was 15, Jane testified that she denied the relationship. She also testified that she later denied to Chicago police investigators that she and Kelly had a sexual relationship.
Jane testified Thursday that she denied to her parents that she had sex with Kelly, but after reports began to emerge in 2002 about the existence of a tape showing the couple engaging in sexual acts, she said that Kelly, Jane and her parents had a meeting where Kelly admitted. for them he had a sexual relationship with his daughter.
Jane and her father were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in 2002. Jane testified that before appearing before the grand jury, she had a conversation with Kelly about “loyalty” and “denying our relationship and the sex tape” .
Jane testified that she lied to a grand jury in 2002 when she denied having a sexual relationship and appearing in sex videos with the singer.