Singer R Kelly To Be Tried For Child Porn

Grammy Award-winning R&B singer R Kelly will face trial in September on child pornography charges, five years after the accusations were first made, prosecutors said yesterday.

Kelly, 40, whose real name is Robert Kelly, faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl.

Prosecutors have said the girl could have been as young as 13, but defence lawyers have disputed her age and whether Kelly is on the tape.

Kelly pleaded not guilty to the charges and has since released hit songs, gone on tours, and released a DVD set of "hip-hopera" skits.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan said jury selection would begin on September 17.

The trial was delayed, in part, by arguments over when the video was made. It was also pushed back after the judge was injured in a fall.

I thought the trial already took place in California and he was acquitted being that California law dictates celebrities are all innocent, especially ones that are blatant pedos who run Neverlands, but I see this is in Cook County. What are the laws regarding celebrities in Ill??

Judging from the article, I see a paradox. That is, they should first charge him with statutory rape, but they can’t locate the girl, who is probably now a lot wealthier and living far, far away.

So for this reason, they are charging him with child pornography, because it has far more liberal standards for prosecution, in that few children used in such imagery are ever identified.

In turn, this creates another paradox, because typically, any adult identified in child porn imagery is identified by unique characteristics, such as jewelry, moles, tattoos, scars, and body type. But in the case of a celebrity, it has to be assumed that if someone wanted to incriminate them, they would very closely *copy* such identifying characteristics.

Not incriminate to get them prosecuted, usually, but so as to sell the imagery as being “genuine”, to fans that would look for such distinguishing characteristics. Fakes.

So this would raise the bar as far as other evidence goes. It should be interesting to see if they get a conviction out of this. Especially with lots of competing expert testimony.

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