R&B superstar R. Kelly was acquitted of all charges this afternoon at his child porn trial – six years after he was first accused of videotaping himself having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Inside the packed Chicago courtroom, Kelly lowered his head and kept it bowed during the entire reading of the 14-count verdict, listening intently as the jurors repeated the words “not guilty.”
“Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,” Kelly mumbled to himself.
Kelly, 41, then dabbed the tears streaming down his face with a blue handkerchief and hugged his lawyers.
The Grammy Award-winning singer – whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly – had faced a maximum 15 years in an Illinois prison. Once outside, Kelly was greeted by a sea of cheering fans.
Kelly, who did not speak to reporters, waved at the fans and hugged several of them before climbing into a parked SUV.
“This has been a terrible ordeal for him and his family,” said Kelly’s spokesman Allan Mayer. “At this point all he wants to do is to move forward and put it behind him.”
Prosecutors had argued that raunchy, 27-minute videotape showed Kelly engaged in various sex acts with a teenage girl sometime between 1998 and 2000 inside his Chicago-area home.
In the lurid video, a man has sex with a young female, who is naked for most of the recording. The man speaks to her in a hushed voice and she often refers to him as “Daddy.”
In one scene, alluded to in one count of the indictment, the man urinates on the girl.
Kelly and the alleged victim, now 23, both denied they were the ones on the tape. Neither testified during the trial.
Kelly’s lawyers argued the man on the tape didn’t have a large mole on his back – and that the singer has such a blemish.
The jury – made up of nine men and three women – deliberated for just 7 ½ hours over a two-day period.
Over seven days, prosecutors called 22 witnesses to the stand, including several childhood friends of the alleged victim and four of her relatives who identified her as the girl in the video.
In just two days, Kelly’ lawyers called 12 witnesses – including three relatives of the alleged victim who said they did not recognize her as the female on the tape.
The prosecution’s star witness, Lisa Van Allen, testified she engaged in threesomes with Kelly and the alleged victim, including once on a basketball court.
Van Allen also claimed Kelly used to carry a duffel bag stuffed full of his homemade sex tapes.