The R. Kelly trial is underway, and a male victim, John Doe “Louis,” testified that he was sexually assaulted by Kelly when he was 17-years old as the singer dangled the possibility of a music career in order to score sexual favors with the minor.
The singer sat stone-faced as the victim detailed before the Brooklyn Federal District Court the events that now threaten to remove Kelly’s freedom.
According to the victim, he was invited to a music studio by R. Kelly, but of going there, Kelly took him to his home, where he performed oral sex on him.
He noted that since that first incident, he was assaulted by Kelly on a number of occasions.
“Louis” is the first man who has come forward to accuse the singer of sexual misconduct in which he details how the singer sexually assaulted him while as a 17-year-old high school student. According to him, the two met in 2006 at a McDonald’s drive-thru in suburban Chicago.
The two became acquainted after R. Kelly, 39 at the time, put his number on a piece of paper and passed it to Louis as a thank you for getting the number of his female coworker for him.
Recognizing Kelly as the big artist he was, Louis, who wanted to pursue a career in music, texted him, and he was later invited to his studio.
“He let the song play for only five seconds and he said he didn’t like it,” Louis said.
The two continued to text after that since Louis left disheartened that his music was not good enough. He later saw Kelly at a gym near the McDonald’s where he worked in Markham, Illinois, and from there, the two formed a friendship which led to him being invited to Kelly’s home play basketball or attends parties.
He was later invited to a studio in Olympia Fields in Chicago. However, on arriving, he realized that it was another home where Kelly committed the first act of assault.
“He asked me what I was willing to do for music. He asked me if I had any fantasies,” Louis said, then repeated what Kelly said to him: “you never had fantasies about men?'”
“I said no,” Louis repied. “And then he crawled down on his knees and proceeded to give me oral sex. He zipped my pants down and he started doing it.”
R. Kelly was told to stop, which he did, and then proceeded to have Louis swear he would keep it a secret.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Kelly said, “we’re brothers now.”
Still hoping to get help with his music dreams, Louis said he continued to hang around the singer, and that’s when he was sexually abused on a number of occasions, with the singer recording the sex acts on his iPad and camcorders while asking Louis to call him “daddy,” The New York Times reported.
R. Kelly and his victim later bonded with Louis saying, “our relationship got stronger, he said I was like a brother,” Louis said. “I was his ‘little brother.'”
Over the course of time, Louis testified he later tried to bribe another R. Kelly accuser so she wouldn’t testify. Several women have come forward to accuse the singer of sexual assault and abuse.
Meanwhile, as Kelly’s sexual assault cases piled up, the singer unraveled and became scared, leading him to approach Louis in 2010 to write a letter saying someone planned to pay him to say he was in a homosexual relationship with R. Kelly. Louis wrote the letter, which the singer dictated.
“He gave me the notepad and I wrote the letter,” Louis said on the stand. “He told me word for word what to say.”
Louis’ appearance on the stand is part of a deal to escape a possible 15-year jail sentence as he was charged in August 2020 for attempting to bribe a second witness in the Kelly trial. He pleaded guilty to bribery in February 2021 and decided to accept a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for his agreement to testify in the Brooklyn trial.
Prosecutors have evidence that Kelly suggested he would pay for the bribe. However, during his examination in chief, Louis said that Kelly, who was in jail when he attempted to bribe the witness, was not involved in the plot.
