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R. Kelly's ex-girlfriend cried while testifying that a business manager for the R&B singer told she should have been killed for causing so much trouble.
R. Kelly's ex-girlfriend sobbed on the stand Thursday as she said that a business manager told her in 2007 that she should have been killed for giving the R&B singer so many problems by taking a tape from a gym bag full of recordings of Kelly having intercourse with women and young girls.
Lisa Van Allen, a prosecution witness, said that she rummaged through the bag on a rare occasion in 2000 when Kelly left it unattended at a studio.
R. Kelly's Ex-Girlfriend Says Singer's Associate Suggested Killing Her
She claimed that she then watched the tapes in order on a VHS player. She grabbed one that had a video of Van Allen, Kelly, and a younger girl who testified against Kelly last week under the alias "Jane" having sex. Van Allen, 42, is the only witness who has testified in both Kelly's present federal prosecution and his 2008 state child pornography trial, in which Kelly was convicted.
R. Kelly, who emerged from poverty on Chicago's South Side to become a legendary musician, is facing child pornography and luring of children for sex accusations in his hometown. The 55-year-old and his co-defendant, former business manager Derrel McDavid, are also accused of rigging the 2008 trial by intimidating witnesses and hiding video evidence.
Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison by a federal judge in New York in June for racketeering and sex trafficking crimes. If convicted in US District Court in Chicago, he may face further years in prison. Van Allen, who was weeping and grasping for tissues during her testimony on Wednesday, claimed that McDavid informed her in 2007 at a Chicago lawyer's office that a polygraph test showed she wasn't telling the truth about the tape she gave back.
Kelly and his sources were concerned that Van Allen had created further copies. Van Allen seemed scared as well, recalling McDavid's reaction to her telling him she was going to inform R. Kelly about McDavid's threat, Associated Press via MSN reported.
Meanwhile, Charles Freeman testified under an immunity deal about the extent he had to go to get the $1 million offered to him by the artist and his friends. Freeman testified about about how Kelly reached out to him in 2001 to ask him to hunt down the recording.
This included one encounter in which Derrel McDavid, Kelly's acquaintance and now co-defendant, told Freeman to strip naked and jump into the pool at the singer's suburban Chicago house to prove he wasn't wearing a wire given by law police. "I ain't getting in no pool nude," Freeman recalls replying, adding that he did remove his shirt as proof that he didn't have a recording device.
After pursuing the singer at his tour dates and threatening to go public with what he knew about the videos, Freeman told the jury that he received $75,000 at a meeting in Kansas City and $100,000 at a subsequent meeting with McDavid.
R. Kelly Could Have More Than 30 Years Sentence if Convicted
McDavid and another R. Kelly associate and Milton Brown are on trial with the singer for allegedly assisting Kelly in fixing his 2008 trial and obtaining child pornography. R. Kelly may face additional time in prison if convicted, in addition to the 30-year term he received in his earlier federal trial in New York, as per HIPHOPWIRED.
Kelly, 55, is accused of 13 counts of child pornography production, conspiracy to generate child pornography, and obstructing justice. According to the indictment, McDavid and Brown plotted to repurchase embarrassing sex recordings obtained from Kelly's collection and conceal years of alleged sexual abuse of minor females.
So far, jurors in the highly watched case have heard from 14 additional witnesses, including Jane, who testified last week that Kelly filmed sexual sessions with her when she was 14, then harassed and eventually bribed her and her family to keep silent. On Friday, the jury was shown clips from three of these videos.
This week has been dominated by another major prosecution witness, Charles Freeman, a Kansas City merchandiser who told the jury in the early 2000s that Kelly and his accomplices promised to pay him up to a million dollars to find further embarrassing films before they were made public, according to Chicago Tribune via MSN.
Related Article: R. Kelly Chicago Trial: Jury Views 17 Video Clips Showing Singer's Sexual Abuse Act, Star Witness Completes Testimony
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