Jun 17, 2008 8:14 pm US/Central
Sealed Documents From R. Kelly Trial Opened
CHICAGO (AP) ―
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Singer R. Kelly waves to fans June 13, 2008 as he leaves the courthouse after being acquitted on 14 counts of child pornography.
CBS
Documents unsealed Tuesday, days after a jury acquitted R. Kelly at his child pornography trial, include claims from the prosecution's star witness that one of the R&B singer's employees threatened her by using street slang for murder.
Lisa Van Allen, 27, claimed the employee told her last year she should have been "murked" for coming forward with information damaging to Kelly. She took that to mean she should have been killed, Van Allen said in a previously sealed document.
A spokesman for Kelly denied that and other accusations from Van Allen, who testified during the monthlong trial that she engaged in three-way sex on several occasions with Kelly and the alleged victim in the case. A jury acquitted Kelly of all charges last week.
"In her testimony in court, Lisa Van Allen revealed herself to be a thief and a liar," Allan Mayer said Tuesday. "She wasn't believed in the courtroom and there's no reason to believe her now."
The unsealed documents also reveal that more than 200 people were listed as potential witnesses, including Kelly and his wife. In the end, just 34 witnesses were called over three weeks of testimony -- 22 for the prosecution, 12 for the defense.
Neither Kelly nor his wife ever testified, nor did the alleged victim in the case.
The documents also indicate that prosecutors once sought credit reports for Kelly, the alleged victim and her parents, but they were never admitted into evidence at trial.
The jury deliberated for around seven hours before acquitting Kelly Friday on all 14 counts of videotaping himself having sex with a girl who prosecutors allege was as young as 13. Tears streamed down Kelly's face as the verdicts were read.
Van Allen, the last witness before prosecutors rested their case, told jurors that Kelly offered her $250,000 last year to recover a tape of one of the alleged trysts. She said acquaintances brought the tape from Kansas City to a Chicago hotel, where it was handed over to a Kelly associate who paid her $20,000 in cash.
Defense attorneys, in turn, accused Van Allen of plotting to extort money from the singer, which she denied. Under cross-examination, however, she admitted she once stole Kelly's $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.
In the unsealed court papers, Van Allen also claimed that after one meeting with the Kelly associate, she also met with Kelly attorney Ed Genson. She said she told Genson she never had sex with the alleged victim because, according to the statement, that's what the Kelly representative told her to tell the attorney.
Genson did not immediately return a telephone message left at his office by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
What Van Allen didn't discuss at trial was just how she got hold of the alleged tape of the tryst.
In the unsealed court papers, she said she stole the video from Kelly's duffel bag in 2001, shortly after she became "disillusioned" with him following an off-and-on affair that began in 1997.
Kelly faced up to 15 years in prison if he'd been convicted. Both he and the alleged victim, who is now 23, deny being on the video at the heart of the trial -- which is separate from those Van Allen testified to being on.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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