As the second week of R. Kelly’s federal trial on racketeering and sex trafficking charges begins, a fuller picture of his alleged tactics is starting to take shape. Witnesses who have testified at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn include a former tour manager, audio engineer, and doctor, each of whom peered into Kelly’s world at various points over the R&B star’s decades-long career (accusations of sexual misconduct have followed the singer since the 1990s).
Last week one of his most prominent alleged victims, Jerhonda Pace, took the stand to offer a harrowing account of what she claimed to have endured while involved with Kelly.
Pace testified that she and Kelly began having sex in 2009, when she was 16. She said she initially told him she was 19 but revealed her true age following their first sexual encounter. Pace said that Kelly responded by asking, “What’s that supposed to mean?” and instructed her to continue telling people she was 19 and to act as if she were 21.
According to Pace, Kelly forced a set of rules upon her, requiring her to call him “daddy,” wear baggy clothes, and acknowledging him whenever he entered a room she was in by looking up at him. When he allegedly filmed them having sex, Pace said, Kelly would require that she wear pigtails and dress like a Girl Scout. On one occasion, she said, she told Kelly she was a fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Pace said that the singer, a Chicago Bulls fan, slapped her in response.
On the second day of her testimony, Pace began to cry as she read from a journal she kept around the time of the alleged assaults. The last time she had sex with Kelly, she had previously testified, was in January of 2009, shortly after he slapped her, spit on her, and choked her until she passed out as punishment for not acknowledging him. “Rob called me a silly bitch,” she read from her journal, adding that he said, “It’s not going to be an open hand next time.”
Anthony Navarro, an audio engineer who worked at Kelly’s Olympia Fields, Illinois, home, recalled in his testimony on Friday how Kelly’s rules for the girls and young women staying at the property were instituted. “They had to get permission to do most things,” Navarro said, adding that he “was told that by Rob and managers.” He described working at the home as “almost like the Twilight Zone,” saying that working gigs for Taylor Swift, Kanye West, and Jay-Z seemed normal by comparison.
Demetrius Smith, who worked as a tour manager for Kelly in the 1980s and 1990s and received a grant of immunity to testify, appeared nervous as he took the stand on Friday, asking for his lawyer to sit closer at one point. Smith said that he met Kelly in 1984 at a talent show at Kenwood Academy in Chicago. He eventually became Kelly’s tour manager as the singer’s career began to take off, and was with Kelly when they went to meet Aaliyah for the first time in Detroit.
Smith said that he asked Kelly at one point, “You ain’t messing with Aaliyah or nothing like that?”
“He said no and I believed it,” Smith said.
But Smith testified that he bribed a welfare office clerk to make a fake ID for the late performer that said she was 18. He said he had resisted at first, telling Kelly that he couldn’t marry the 15-year-old singer because she was too young.
“He was confused,” Smith said. “He asked me whose side I was on.”
Smith repeatedly expressed hesitation over testifying, saying at one point, “I’m uncomfortable with this, your honor. We’re continuously talking about Aaliyah. Her parents are not here and I don’t understand why I got to do that.” On Monday, his second day of testimony, a prosecutor asked him why he had helped Kelly. Smith replied that he had been with Kelly since 1984. When asked whether it was fair to say that he wanted to protect the defendant, he replied, “Not at this point.”
Kelly was arrested in July 2019 and ultimately indicted on 13 counts in Chicago and nine counts in New York, including racketeering and the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children. He faces a second federal trial in Chicago, on charges of child pornography and obstruction, that is set to begin on September 13. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
— Cover Story: From Puff Daddy to Diddy to Love
— Behind-the-Scenes Details About Working With Meghan and Harry
— The Doris Duke Cold Case Reopens
— A Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton TV Project?
— Monica Lewinsky on the Love of Her Life and Her Greatest Regret
— Jennifer Lopez Unfollows Alex Rodriguez on Instagram
— Love Is a Crime: Inside One of Hollywood’s Wildest Scandals
— “That Woman Was Made of Steel”: Aaliyah’s Life and Legacy
— 19 Black-Owned Beauty and Wellness Brands With Something for Everyone
— From the Archive: The Code of Silence at Brett Kavanaugh’s Alma Mater
— Sign up for “The Buyline” to receive a curated list of fashion, books, and beauty buys in one weekly newsletter.