Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Prosecutors played the sex tape at the center of R. Kelly's child pornography trial in open court Tuesday, just hours after opening statements in which they accused the R&B singer of choreographing and starring in the footage with an underage girl.
  
The jurors, who had been taking feverish notes during opening statements, sat motionless while the video played. Their eyes were fixed on a 4-by-4-foot monitor just outside the jurors' box, and in the courtroom, the lights were dimmed and blinds drawn across windows.
  
A grim-looking Kelly appeared to intently watch the entire footage via a small monitor placed on the defense table. He occasionally rocked in his chair and rested his chin in his hand.
  
Before putting the black VHS tape into a tape player, the prosecution entered it into the record as "People's Exhibit No. 1."
  
The 27-minute homemade video shows a man having sex with a young female, who is naked for most of the recording save a necklace with a cross dangling from it.
  
At the start of the videotape, the man hands the female money and she mouths the words, "Thank you." She is often blank-faced, impassive. The man speaks to the female in a hushed, monotone voice, and she calls him "Daddy."
  
Songs from the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys blare from a radio. The female dances -- the man out of view. Back in view, he has sex with her. The man walks up to the camera to adjust it a few times, but his face is often obscured.
  
Prosecutors say the man in the video is Kelly, and that the female is a girl who was as young as 13 at the time.

"A child doesn't choose to be violated and placed on a videotape, a videotape that will live on forever -- long after this child becomes an adult," Cook County prosecutor Shauna Boliker told jurors as opening statements got under way in the long-delayed trial. 

Defense attorneys, however, told jurors in their opening statements that Kelly is not the man on the tape. The defense also told jurors that the female authorities allege is depicted on the tape is not that person at all.

Kelly arrived with his entourage in front of the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, 2600 S. California Ave., around 9:40 a.m. Tuesday. Opening statements began at 11 a.m. and took about an hour.

Kelly, 41, whose full name is Robert S. Kelly, won a Grammy in 1997 for the gospel-like song "I Believe I Can Fly" but whose biggest hits are sexually charged songs like "Bump N' Grind" and "Ignition," has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to 15 years if convicted.

In opening statements, Boliker repeatedly referred to the female depicted in the tape as a "child" and Kelly by his birth name of Robert Kelly. She alleged that the singer took advantage of the inherent trust children place in adults, and that the female on the tape performed acts that Kelly "commanded" her to perform.

The videotape, she said, is "child pornography that was created, staged, produced and starred in by the defendant that sits before you, Robert Kelly."

The defense's problem is that FBI experts who examined the tape can't positively identify Kelly.

"It tremendously hurts the prosecution that there is no expert to come in and say 'that's him' and that there's no expert to come in and say 'that girl is not who they think it is,'" said CBS 2 Legal Analyst Irv Miller.

Boliker's opening statement lasted less than 30 minutes. Jurors then listened to one of Kelly's defense attorneys, Sam Adam Jr.

Adam told jurors that the videotape in evidence is "at best a copy of a copy of a copy" and that Kelly is not the man on the tape.

"Not a single witness can tell you that is him on the tape," Adam said. He also said the FBI could not identify the man on the tape as Kelly.

What's more, he said, Kelly has a "significant" mole in the middle of his lower back that has been there since childhood. But he said the man on the tape did not have the mole.

"There is no mole on his back," Adam said. "Robert isn't that man on the tape."

Adam also told jurors the female that prosecutors claim is depicted on the video "is not a victim because she is not the girl on that tape."

The entire case is dependent on the videotape which was allegedly made about a decade ago. But as convincing as videotape evidence can be, it doesn't appear to be a slam dunk for the prosecution in this case.

The tape shows a man prosecutors say is Kelly engaging in sex acts with and urinating on the young girl. He refers to the girl, now 23, who allegedly appears as his "god-daughter" on the album liner notes of his "TP2.com" album. Her father played bass for Kelly.

The prosecution is expected to call a number of witnesses who will identify the girl on the tape as a friend or relative who was 13 at the time the video was made, but not the girl or her immediate family. Prosecutors hope Kelly's associates will identify him.

Miller says the significance of the videotape is profound.

"It's going to have a major impact, because don't forget, the defense attorney has to get up right after that, if they want to, and this is a graphic piece of evidence the jury will has just seen, and so it's kind of difficult for the defense to get up there right after this," Miller said. "That's why it would be a good move for the prosecutors to do that."

Prosecutors say the videotape was made between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1 2000. Someone sent the videotape to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002, and the newspaper then turned it over to authorities; Kelly was indicted later that year.

The defense is likely to try and raise doubts that the man in the videotape is Kelly, perhaps by reviving a claim that his likeness could have been computer generated. They're also likely to challenge the assertion that the girl is under age. But a forensic evidence expert is expected to testify that the tape is real.

The biggest question for the defense is whether Kelly himself will take the stand.

"They haven't made that decision yet," Miller said. "I guarantee you, they're waiting to see how strong the state's case is before that even comes up."

The other key figures in the trial include Judge Vincent Gaughan, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran who has made it clear he won't let the case descend into a celebrity circus.

His obsession with keeping control of the proceedings have occasionally verged on quirky.

During a hearing on Friday, Gaughan held up a plastic bag in court with pieces of chewed gum he said had accumulated under the rows where the press sits during jury selection.

"Don't stick gum on the benches," he said. "Actually, it's a crime."

The defense is led by 66-year-old Ed Genson, highly sought by the rich and famous for his persuasive powers with jurors. The gray-bearded Genson suffers from a neurological disorder that forces him to walk as if he had a severe hip injury, and he often uses a motorized scooter. He's known to adopt a gasping, stammering air that masks the wiles of a shrewd tactician.

The other lead attorney, Sam Adam Jr., the talented young son of Genson's longtime partner Sam Adam Sr., in his opening statement asked, "Who better knows the body of a young girl than her mother? And the mother says the girl on the tape isn't who prosecutors say she is."

Boliker, 48, is expected to take the lead for the prosecution. The mother of three had her latest child only last year, which contributed to delays in Kelly's trial. She has prosecuted several high-profile cases, including against Rev. Daniel McCormack, a Catholic priest who pleaded guilty last year to abusing five boys.

Meanwhile, the racial composition of the jury is unchanged after a juror was dismissed Tuesday morning. A white woman selected for the panel complained that jury duty would leave her unable to pay her bills.

She was replaced with a white male alternate.

Jury selection finished last week with prosecutors and defense attorneys accusing each other of trying to stack the panel along racial lines.
  
Eight jurors of the seated jurors are white and four are black.

CBS 2's Joanie Lum, Dorothy Tucker and Jay Levine and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Editor's Picks

• Gay Celebrities
• Did You Know? Stars From Chicago!
• Celebs Who Lean To The Right
• Real Or Fake?