Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A childhood friend of the alleged victim in the R. Kelly child pornography case testified Wednesday that she recognizes her longtime friend as the one in the explicit video at the center of the trial.

The R&B superstar is accused of videotaping himself having sex with a girl as young as 13. His attorneys have said Kelly's not on the tape and the alleged victim, who is now 23 years old, also denies she's the person in the video.

Prosecutors showed the footage within hours of opening statements Tuesday and now they're working to prove their claim that Kelly and the alleged victim are indeed in the video.

On Wednesday, Simha Jamison, 24, said she and the alleged victim were best friends for about 10 years until their junior year in high school. She knows her best friend's face like she knows "the back of her own hand," she said.

She testified she and her friend visited Kelly at his recording studio and at a Chicago basketball court dozens of times starting when they were around the age of 12.

Her friend first introduced her to Kelly as "her godfather," Jamison said, adding that the singer frequently gave her friend cash gifts -- "no less than $100 and no more than $500."

She said the two also visited the North Side home where authorities say the sex tape was filmed. Jamison said she saw the tape in 2002 and again just before testifying.

Jamison remained insistent under tough cross-examination later in the day from defense attorney Sam Adam Jr.

Adam said the reason the alleged victim never told the witness she was having a sexual relationship with Kelly was because there wasn't one and "because it's not her on the tape."

"Are you asking or telling me?" Jamison shot back.

As the prosecution tried to build its case with witnesses who said they recognized the victim as the young teen they knew well, the defense began to build what it calls a motive for an extortion plot.

In 1998, right around the time the sex tape was recorded, Kelly and Sparkle; real name Stephanie Edwards, the alleged victim's aunt; sang a duet, with words that may prove prophetic.

"You better be careful what you do to me because someone might do it to you," Sparkle sang.

Kelly and Sparkle broke up soon afterward, both personally and professionally. Internet reports say something the niece told Kelly might have influenced the split.

Sparkle quickly joined another label, and recorded another single which seemed to bid Kelly farewell.

In testimony Wednesday, defense attorneys called the sex tape: "a ploy by Sparkle to get back at Mr. Kelly for being wronged."

While family members and a friend said they were sure those on the tape were the girl they knew well and Kelly, the defense attacked both their motive and their credibility.

"Sparkle," they said, "was running around with the tape trying to make money for the family."

At the same time the victim and her cousins were launching careers of their own. While it's alleged that Kelly was regularly giving the victim money, there's no indication yet that he was involved in recordings which were apparently very popular overseas.

The 41-year-old Kelly, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 15 years if convicted.

The prosecution's first few witnesses were geared toward identifying the alleged victim on the tape that prosecutors say was made between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1, 2000.

Jamison's father, Peter Thomas, testified that the alleged victim's involvement in the video was the talk of their neighborhood. When his daughter heard about it in 2002, he said she would cry herself to sleep but wouldn't discuss it.

He watched the video for the first time before testifying Wednesday and identified the girl, guessing that she must have been around 14 or 15 in the video.

The tape shows a man having sex with a young female, who is naked for most of the recording -- save for a necklace with a cross dangling from it. At the start, the man hands the female money and she thanks him. She is often blank-faced, impassive. The man speaks in a hushed, monotone voice, and she calls him "Daddy."

The female dances, and urinates on the floor -- the man out of view. Back in view, he has sex with her. Near the end of the video, the man urinates on the female.

The man walks up to the camera to adjust it a few times, but his face is often obscured.

As the video played in Judge Vincent Gaughan's courtroom on Tuesday, Kelly sat at the defense table while the jury took notes.

"It's a very graphic tape. Any person that's going to see it is going to be offended by it, because it's clearly child pornography," said CBS 2 Legal Analyst Irv Miller. "And that's why the defense is saying, 'Well, it might be the worst child pornography in the world, but it's not our client, and it's not the young lady who they say it is."

Earlier Wednesday, John Kelly, a retired investigator with the Cook County state's attorney's office, testified that a room in a Chicago home once owned by the singer strongly resembles the distinctive room in the video.

John Kelly said he visited the sprawling red brick home on Chicago's North Side in 2002 and saw what he described as a "hot tub room" with the same log-cabin theme as the room in the video.

During cross examination, the defense countered that Kelly moved out of the home at least several weeks before the investigator arrived.

Also Wednesday, Judge Gaughan accused a Chicago Tribune sketch artist of violating the strict code of conduct he's established for the courtroom by creating images of jurors for publication. Gaughan, who has long curtailed media access to the case's documents and proceedings, withdrew the artist's media credentials for the rest of the trial.

R. Kelly won a Grammy in 1997 for the gospel-tinged "I Believe I Can Fly," and also is known for such songs as "Bump N' Grind," "Ignition," and "Trapped in the Closet," a multipart saga about the sexual secrets of a lively and ever-expanding cast of characters. 
 
CBS 2's Joanie Lum, Jay Levine and Dorothy Tucker and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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

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