R. Kelly Trial: Decades of Accusations in the Making

Twenty five years ago, a woman in Chicago sued the singer R. Kelly.

Tiffany Hawkins said she and Mr. Kelly began having sex in 1991, when he was 24 and she was an underage high school student. The lawsuit was settled for $250,000, and the murmurs about sexual misconduct have followed Mr. Kelly ever since, spilling over into public view across two decades of civil suits, accusations and a disturbing Lifetime documentary.

But the only time Robert Sylvester Kelly faced criminal charges, in 2008, he was acquitted. Now, years removed from that first trial, Mr. Kelly faces far more formidable charges.

At his highly anticipated trial, which is scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, prosecutors will portray Mr. Kelly as the criminal ringleader of a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls to have sex with him, often while controlling the minutiae of their lives.

Mr. Kelly, 54, has steadfastly denied all of the sexual misconduct and physical abuse accusations against him. He faces one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. If convicted, Mr. Kelly faces decades in prison.

The case against him centers on six unnamed women, including two who appeared in the documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly” and two who the government says have never spoken publicly about their allegations. Three were underage.

The result of his last criminal case will be in mind for many observers, including his accusers and their families and his base of fans who maintain unflinching support. That 2008 trial, on child pornography charges, was also highly publicized, but he was ultimately acquitted on all 14 counts after the girl at the center of the case declined to testify.

“The fact that R. Kelly got acquitted of not identical crimes, but certainly similar ones, in Chicago maybe gives him a little confidence level,” said Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor. “However, it’s a different game once you bring racketeering into the equation.”

The charges have changed since that first trial, but so has the world around Mr. Kelly: The culture around allegations of sexual misconduct has shifted dramatically, particularly after the rise of the #MeToo movement.

The case against the singer also appears to be better fortified this time: At least three of the six women referenced in the indictment are expected to testify at the trial.

Even if acquitted on all counts, Mr. Kelly’s legal peril will endure. He awaits a federal trial in Chicago on child pornography and obstruction charges that come with the threat of a lengthy prison term, and he faces additional state sex crime charges in Illinois and Minneapolis.

The original indictment in New York against Mr. Kelly, who appeared in court with his head shaved this week, was filed in the summer of 2019, but the pandemic delayed his trial date.

The trial is expected to last about four weeks and over that time, the 12-person jury — seven men and five women — will hear evidence accusing Mr. Kelly of physically abusing and psychologically manipulating victims; making threats and hush money payments to keep some quiet; and often dictating when they could eat and use the bathroom, while forbidding them from looking at other men and forcing them to call him “Daddy.”

The racketeering charge allows prosecutors to introduce acts from any relevant time period. Those acts include one of the first major revelations to bring public scrutiny to Mr. Kelly’s actions: his brief marriage to the singer Aaliyah in 1994.

Prosecutors will argue that Mr. Kelly believed Aaliyah, who was 15, had become pregnant by him, and that he arranged to marry her so that she would not be forced to testify against him. They will present evidence that Mr. Kelly and his associates bribed an Illinois government employee to obtain a fake ID for Aaliyah, whose full name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton and who died in a 2001 plane crash at age 22.

It was used to obtain a marriage license listing Aaliyah’s age as 18, the government says. She will be identified at trial as Jane Doe 1.

The accounts of witnesses, already outlined in court documents, are expected to be graphic and startling. One is set to testify that in 2003, she became dizzy after one of Mr. Kelly’s associates offered her food and a drink, and awoke with Mr. Kelly in the room and her underwear removed. Prosecutors say that it was apparent she had been sexually assaulted while she was unconscious.

Another plans to describe a 2009 sexual relationship with Mr. Kelly, when she was 16, during which she was beaten, choked and isolated without food if she did not perform sexual acts when he wanted, court filings say. And the government anticipates several will testify that they contracted herpes after having sex with Mr. Kelly as lawyers accuse him of knowingly spreading the disease.

The jury, whose members will be anonymous and semi-sequestered, was selected last week. But opening statements were delayed to give additional preparation time to two lawyers who joined Mr. Kelly’s team this summer, after the departures of two other longtime members.

To establish the racketeering charge, the government plans to introduce evidence of more than a dozen criminal accusations that Mr. Kelly has never been charged with. U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly, who is presiding over the trial, has not yet decided how much will be allowed.

Mr. Kelly’s defense team has challenged much of the move. One of his lawyers, Thomas A. Farinella, has called it “nothing more than a veiled effort to pile on to further shape the public’s perception in this case ignoring that Mr. Kelly is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.”

Still, the strategy is not uncommon — in racketeering cases or otherwise — and has been used in several prominent sex crime cases in recent years.

When Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of two felony sex crimes last year, the verdict came after the lengthy testimonies of three women who also testified about uncharged sexual assaults. Mr. Weinstein, once a powerful Hollywood producer, has since appealed his conviction on the grounds that the women should not have been permitted to testify.

But legal experts said that Mr. Kelly’s racketeering charge — and the type of evidence against him — makes the situation distinct.

The uncharged acts could involve up to 14 additional people who say that they, too, were mistreated by Mr. Kelly.

Six accuse him of sexual abuse when they were minors, including a man who the government says is expected to testify that Mr. Kelly offered to mentor him in his musical aspirations but pressured him to have sex when he was 17.

Court filings have offered a window into possible components of Mr. Kelly’s defense.

The credibility and motives of witnesses will often come under fire, as the defense contends that they were not coerced or abused. Rather, Mr. Kelly’s team will argue, many were fans of Mr. Kelly — referred to as “disgruntled groupies” in at least one court filing — who had consensual sex with him but later changed and “embellished” their stories out of regret or financial motivations.

Mr. Kelly’s conduct will be the public focus of the trial. But the actions of those in his orbit — managers, bodyguards, drivers and members of his entourage, among others — will be key to the case for both sides.

His defense team will argue that the racketeering charge does not hold; that the government’s portrait of a vast criminal enterprise only loosely exists beyond a single individual.

G. Robert Blakey, a former professor at Notre Dame Law School who played a major role in creating the underlying statute when it was established decades ago, said it is not necessary for the government to prove a complex syndicate existed.

A less structured arrangement over the span of several years — he offered neighborhood pickup basketball games as an example, where residents know the regulars, their positions and the activities endure even as players change — is enough, Mr. Blakey said. He said he would have made the argument of a criminal enterprise “a little more concrete” but did not see major holes.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Kelly has been named and what he’s done individually with these girls is outrageous if it’s true,” he said. “But the jury has to decide looking at the statute.”