Thank You Jesus: R Kelly Trial Update

R Kelly

R Kelly likes filming himself having sex with underage girls, is the sort of thing you might say if you wanted to be sued for libel.

As much previously reported, Kelly faced fifteen years in prison if found guilty of the fourteen charges that remained against him as his trial began - a number of other related charges having been dropped much earlier, mainly on procedural technicalities.

The prosecution accused him of filming himself having sex with a girl as young as 13, and had a tape of the film to prove it. But it wasn't too easy to identify the participants in the tape, and although there were similarities between the man and woman shown and Kelly and the girl alleged to be the victim - now 23 - both Kelly and the girl denied it was them.

And while the prosecution wheeled in various friends of the girl to say they were certain it was her and, in some cases, him in the tape, the defence clearly managed to put enough doubt into the jurors' minds as to the identities of the sex tape stars, perhaps by wheeling in family members of the alleged victim who said it clearly wasn't her, or perhaps by claiming a mole on Kelly's back was not present in the video (and any marks that may have been it were just smudges on the tape). And the defence clearly succeeded in throwing doubt on the credibility of the prosecution's star witness, a woman who claimed to have had threesomes with Kelly and the under-aged girl.

This being America, those jurors were quickly discussing the case after Kelly's acquittal, telling reporters that the big problem was the prosecution just didn't provide enough evidence to say that - beyond reasonable doubt - it was Kelly and the alleged victim in the tape. One told reporters: "You want to be 100 per cent sure it's Kelly and [the alleged victim], what we had wasn't enough", while another said: "All of us felt very much the grayness of this case". Others said the fact the prosecution never called Kelly nor the alleged victim, or her parents, who were friends of the singer, to the witness stand also weakened their case.

Kelly chose not to speak to reporters at the court house, but a statement issued on his behalf later said that the singer always knew that "when all the facts came out in court, he would be cleared of these terrible charges ... all he wants to do is move forward and put it behind him".

Of course, as is often the way with these things, those who want to believe Kelly did bad things with young girls will continue to do so, but the full acquittal means that the R&B star, who has managed to continue having a pretty successful music career despite the usually emotive nature of the allegations against him, will be able to continue with that career without the tricky matter of a potentially embarrassing court case and possible incarceration on the horizon.