The musician R. Kelly is on trial. His former manager now testified how the defendant once managed to marry a minor.
New York – In the abuse trial against music star R. Kelly (54, “I Believe I Can Fly”), a former tour manager testified on Friday about details of Kelly’s relationship with singer Aaliyah.
Kelly is said to have passed the then 15-year-old as of legal age and married in 1994 because he thought she was pregnant.
According to US media reports, the manager said he bribed an official with money from Kelly. He was supposed to have forged identification papers so that the singer, who was 27 at the time, could marry the youngster after learning of the alleged pregnancy of the 15-year-old. Aaliyah’s age is 18 on the Illinois marriage certificate. Sex with minors is illegal in the US state.
The manager said he was uncomfortable with Kelly flirting with the teenager and that it seemed “too friendly” to him. Kelly met Aaliyah in 1992 when she was 13 and then two years later produced her album “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number”. Kelly’s defense allegedly denied the events, according to USA Today, arguing that there was no evidence of the pregnancy. The singer died in a plane crash in 2001.
Kelly are accused of sexual exploitation of minors, kidnapping and bribery in the trial in Brooklyn, New York. Because the offense of “racketeering” (such as “organized crime”) is also part of the indictment, the actually statute-barred events can be brought to court in the mid-1990s.
If convicted on all points, the singer faces a prison sentence of ten years to life. The musician, who has been in prison since his arrest in summer 2019, has repeatedly denied all allegations and accused his critics of a character assassination campaign. dpa
