NEW YORK — A woman who accuses R. Kelly of sexually abusing her told jurors at his racketeering trial on Wednesday that she was unnerved when she saw a gun near where the R&B singer forced her to perform oral sex on him.
In her second day of testimony, the woman, who identified herself as Faith, said the Los Angeles encounter took place in Jan. 2018, near the end of an 11-month relationship during which Mr. Kelly flew her several times to concerts or recording studios and trained her to please him sexually.
Faith, who said she was 19 when she met the then-50-year-old Mr. Kelly at a San Antonio concert in March 2017, testified that the gun left her “intimidated” and fearful of what would happen if she tried to leave. “I wasn’t even going to step out of line,” she told the jury of seven men and five women in Brooklyn federal court.
On cross-examination, Mr. Kelly’s lawyer Deveraux Cannick tried to poke holes in Faith’s testimony, trying to show jurors it was her choice to keep seeing the singer despite her claims she did not always welcome his sexual advances. “You participated on your own will,” Cannick said to Faith.
Mr. Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been on trial since Aug. 18 for running what prosecutors called a decades-long scheme targeting women and girls for sex, with the help of employees and assistants in his entourage.
Known for the 1996 Grammy-winning song “I Believe I Can Fly,” the 54-year-old Mr. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to one racketeering count and eight counts of violating an interstate sex trafficking law. — Reuters