Jury of 7 men and 5 women selected for R. Kelly's sex trafficking trial in New York City
R&B star R. Kelly will face an anonymous jury made up of seven men and five women when his New York City sex trafficking trial goes forward next week with opening statements. Lingering health threats caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a shakeup of Kelly's defense team pushed the trial into the summer, nearly two years after he was charged with abusing women and girls for nearly two decades.
The panel was sworn in on Wednesday after dozens of potential jurors were screened by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in federal court in Brooklyn.
The judge sought assurances from prospective jurors that they could remain impartial despite the bad publicity swirling around Robert Sylvester Kelly since his 2019 arrest. Some told her that they were mainly aware of the 54-year-old from his smash hit "I Believe I Can Fly." Many said they knew little or nothing about the case.
The jury selection spanned three days, with Kelly seen on a video feed sitting impassively at the defense table, wearing glasses and dressed in a suit. The scene was beamed into an overflow courtroom after a judge took the unusual step of barring the press and public from watching trial in person, citing coronavirus concerns.
The multiplatinum-selling singer has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of leading an enterprise of managers, bodyguards and other employees who helped him recruit women and girls for sex. Federal prosecutors say the group selected victims at concerts and other venues and arranged for them to travel to see Kelly.
Defense lawyers have said Kelly's alleged victims were groupies who turned up at his shows and made it known they "were dying to be with him." The women only started accusing him of abuse years later when public sentiment shifted in the #MeToo era, they said.
The case is only part of the legal peril facing the singer. He also has pleaded not guilty to sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota. Kelly has been incarcerated since he was indicted in 2019, and has mostly been held in a federal jail in Chicago. Last month, he was moved to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to face trial.
Kelly has been trailed for decades by complaints and allegations about his sexual behavior, including a 2002 child pornography case in Chicago. He was acquitted in that case in 2008.