After several days of testimony from women claiming they were groomed and sexually abused by R. Kelly, a man took the witness stand at Kelly's sex-trafficking trial in New York City on Monday to say the R&B star exploited him in the same way when he was a high school student.
The witness, testifying in federal court in Brooklyn without using his real name, told a jury how Kelly lured him to his Chicago-area home in 2007 with false offers of helping him with his fledgling music career.
Kelly asked the alleged victim, then 17, "what I was willing to do for music," the witness said. He replied, "I'll carry your bags. ... Anything you need, I'll be willing to do."
"That's not it. That's not it," he said Kelly responded before asking him if he ever fantasized about having sex with men. He described how Kelly then "crawled down on his knees and proceeded to give me oral sex," even though, "I wasn't into it."
Afterward, "he told me to keep between him and me," he said.
In a later episode, Kelly snapped his fingers to summon a naked girl from where she was hiding under a boxing ring to give Kelly and the witness oral sex, the man told the jury.
He kept seeing Kelly after that because "I really wanted to make it in the music industry," he said.
The witness was testifying as part of a cooperation agreement stemming from his guilty plea in a separate case alleging he was part of a botched scheme to bribe a woman to not testify against Kelly. No charges were brought against Kelly related to the scheme.
Kelly, 54, has repeatedly denied accusations that he preyed on victims during a 30-year career highlighted by his 1996 mega hit "I Believe I Can Fly." His lawyers have portrayed his accusers as groupies who are lying about their relationships with him.
Earlier Monday, a woman testified that Kelly sexually assaulted her at age 17 following a performance in Miami in 1994. The witness, also testifying without using her real name, claimed that Kelly's cronies took her and a friend to his dressing room after the show before he pulled down her shorts and forced her to have unprotected sex, she said.
"I was in complete shock," she said. "I didn't know what to say at all. I basically went blank."
Afterward, she and her friend "unlocked the door and ran out of there," she said.
On cross-examination, defence attorney Deveraux Cannick pressed the witness on why, after someone allegedly "raped you," she waited more than two decades to contact law enforcement.
"Because I didn't want to feel more shame and trauma," she said.
An image of the unidentified object shot down over Canada's Yukon territory in February 2023 has been obtained by CTVNews.ca.
MPs debated the first non-confidence motion of the fall House of Commons sitting today, seeing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre push once again for a snap election. But with votes secured to keep them afloat, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals were quick to turn the discussion into a referendum on the Conservative alternative.
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Four puppies were found near County Road 21 in Essa Township after a passerby spotted one when it ran out of the ditch and onto the road.
After Ontario Premier Doug Ford made controversial comments about solutions to get people out of homeless encampments, advocates and members of the opposition spoke up on Tuesday.
Â鶹´«Ã½ and the Investigative Journalism Foundation spoke with a Canadian who claims his identity was stolen and used to set up a series of companies peddling fraudulent investment schemes.
A Missouri man convicted of breaking into a woman’s home and repeatedly stabbing her was executed Tuesday over the objections of the victim’s family and the prosecutor, who wanted the death sentence commuted to life in prison.
Kg rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and its ally Hamas, a fellow Iran-backed militant group. Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders while threatening a wider operation.
Iran’s new president signaled to world leaders Tuesday that he wants to open a 'constructive' chapter in his country’s international relations — but he made clear that everyone else, including the United States, needs to do their part.
A man who authorities say staked out Donald Trump for 12 hours on his golf course in Florida and wrote of his desire to kill him was indicted Tuesday on an attempted assassination charge.
Special counsel Jack Smith this week will be allowed to file hundreds of pages of legal arguments and evidence gathered in the 2020 election subversion and Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack criminal case against former president Donald Trump, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
A federal judge sentenced FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend to two years in prison, citing her extensive cooperation with prosecutors that led to the conviction of the former face of the cryptocurrency industry in one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.
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U.S. President Joe Biden reflected on the motivation behind his decision to step away from politics and sent a message of unity to global leaders gathered at a time of increasing division and geopolitical instability.
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The Crown's key witness in the sexual assault trial against former Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard will take the stand in a northern Ontario courtroom Tuesday afternoon following the judge's instructions to the jury.
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