Reuters/Jane Rosenberg
- Opening statements in R. Kelly's sex crimes trial begin Wednesday.
- The trial is expected to last four weeks.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Federal prosecutors are set to give opening statements in R. Kelly's trial Wednesday morning, where they're expected to outline how the singer recruited women for sex as part what they allege was a wide-ranging criminal enterprise.
In June 2019, prosecutors brought nine charges against Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, alleging he ran a criminal enterprise comprised of his employees and entourage that recruited women for sex. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
Judge Ann Donnelly finalized the 12-person jury with six alternates on August 11 for the trial, which had been repeatedly delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and is expected to last four weeks.
Donnelly made the jurors' identities anonymous and partially sequestered them – meaning they are shuttled to and from court by US marshals – in order to insulate them from members of the media and protesters who believe the singer is innocent of the charges against him.
The trial follows decades of sexual misconduct allegations against Kelly. The singer was tried on child pornography charges in 2008 but acquitted at trial.
In 2017, the #MeToo movement and a BuzzFeed News article alleging he ran a "sex cult" boosted #MuteRKelly activists who had for years tried to turn him into a pariah, bringing fresh attention to allegations about him.
In court documents, Kelly's lawyers have depicted accusers as people who willingly engaged in sex and soured on him later. Prosecutors say Kelly effectively ran a racketeering operation where he directed people in his circle to lure girls into his web for sex.
Prosecutors also said in charging documents that Kelly directed an employee to bribe an Illinois government official to falsify documents for Aaliyah, the R&B singer killed in a plane crash in 2001. Kelly married her in 1994, when he was 27 and she was 15.
In addition to the federal charges against Kelly in Brooklyn, prosecutors elsewhere have brought criminal charges against the singer. Federal prosecutors in Chicago have also brought sex abuse charges against him, and state-level prosecutors in Illinois and Minnesota have brought sexual misconduct charges against him as well.