Not since Roman Polanski fled to Paris or Michael Jackson danced on the roof of his car outside court have alleged pedophiles felt more empowered: R&B megastar R. Kelly has been acquitted. Shockingly, stunningly, amazingly acquitted.
The initial vote after the case went to the jury was 10-2 in favor of acquittal.
A white female juror told the Chicago Tribune “…at some point we said there was a lack of evidence,” the woman said. “There was nothing concrete enough to say it was him or her on that tape.”
The jury also found Kelly not guilty of providing alcohol to a minor.
MTV.com was inside the courtroom and meticulously captured defense attorney Sam Adams Jr.’s opening and closing arguments. The defense appealed to the jury by claiming the man featured on the infamous video was not Kelly and that the tape was doctored, and ultimately, the girl featured on the tape did not testify on her behalf.
“In order to find R. Kelly guilty [of the 14 counts against him],” defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. said, “you’re going to have to call this girl a whore 14 times. Before the whole world, you’re going to have to say that [the prosecutors] proved it to you: that this girl is a whore.”
The prosecution made sure to say they considered the girl on the tape a victim of child pornography, not a prostitute, and that charges have to be leveled on child pornography charges brought before them.
Kelly’s attorneys also suggested the 27-minute tape had been doctored, going so far as to say someone could have edited the singer’s head onto another man’s body. A prosecution expert testified such editing trickery would take 44 years and still be obvious to viewers.
But it was not enough to convince the jury.
Raven Gengler is one of four close friends who grew up with the alleged victim in the west suburbs in the late 1990s, and identified her and Kelly on the tape in court. Gengler told the Chicago Sun-Times that she was coming to terms with the verdict.
Though she and 14 other witnesses said the alleged victim was the “13 or 14 year-old” girl on the notorious 27-minute sex tape at the center of the case, the jurors in the end said they couldn’t be sure.
The alleged victim refused to testify, and told a grand jury she was not the girl on the tape, putting friends and family members who believed it was her in a difficult position.
“I still love her, and even though she said it wasn’t her, I came forward out of love,” Gengler said, adding that she was still “sure” it was her friend and Kelly on the tape.
If the remix of “Ignition” isn’t enough R. Kelly vocal smoothness to un-ruffle any feathers that may have been knocked out of place at what may seem like a miscarriage of justice (Kelly’s lawyer Adams calls it “a triumph of the Cook County jury system”), check out his new song and video, “Real Talk,” now up on YouTube.
The song is another well thought out R. Kelly classic: Kelly calls his girlfriend who has accused him of cheating on her. He makes the argument that her friends saw him at a club with another girl, and with a group of guys. He then discredits her friends as “no-man having bitches” who “don’t eat with us, they don’t sleep with us, and besides, what they eat don’t make us shit.” Good advice for those feeling sickened by the verdict of the trial.
image via Reuters/John Gress
Six years ago, it was all over the news: R&B superstar R. Kelly accused of videotaping himself and a minor possibly as young as 13 at the time, performing sex acts famously parodied on “Chappelle’s Show”.
Such an obscene scandal under intense media scrutiny has tanked other superstar’s careers, but for now, Kelly seems bulletproof. Gary Glitter, convicted of possessing child pornography, fled the country and lives as a recluse. George Michael has parodied the events that led to his downfall–sex in a public bathroom–but has still not fully recovered. R. Kelly, however, is still a huge star with no visible dings, and it looks like he might even win this case.
A bit of backstory: Kelly was arrested in February 2002 after the video tape (which may have been made between 1998 and 2000) was sent to police by his local paper, the Chicago Sun-Times. Four months later, Kelly was charged with 21 counts relating to child pornography and released on $750,000 bail. Seven of the charges have since been dropped. Kelly’s lawyer has filed a motion to further postpone the case, but Chicago Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan is reported as not being likely to agree.
As of May 12th, three jurors had been selected. MTV news has reported that Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis’ name came up as a witness, and former R. Kelly manager (and Aaliyah’s uncle) Barry Hankerson was mentioned as another.
Kelly has been present for the jury selection process. Writer Jennifer Vineyard was in the courtroom and wrote for MTV.com, “For the most part, Kelly seemed disengaged from the process, staring at the table, often holding a tissue to his face as if he had a runny nose or was warding off a bad smell. (The men’s bathroom was only a few feet away from him, and at one point, deputies scrambled to find Lysol to spray in there, though no one else seemed to be affected. However, on Tuesday, May 13, a jury consultant asked Kelly if his cold had improved.)” Each juror would then be asked, “Can you look Mr. Kelly in the eye and tell him you can give him a fair trial?” at which point the singer would put down his tissue, look straight at them, and nod.
Provided 13 more jurors are selected in time, the trial is scheduled to begin on Friday.
In a story that at first reads like news straight from The Onion, punks and metal heads (read: Rockers) have attacked public gatherings of emos (read: Mods) in at least two cities in Mexico. There appears to be a calm in the storm as the battle between the urban “tribes” (as some groups identified themselves) has for now been relegated to the blog realm. More violence is expected in the future from the young adults who are disgusted by and violently opposed to a burgeoning cultural movement identified as emo. According to Cox Newspaper correspondent Jeremy Schwartz in Mexico City, this includes soccer fans. Warnings have been issued to any emos planning to attend an upcoming town fair in Tijuana.
Don’t even think we’re making this up. There is coverage on this story on the Time Magazine website as well as a typically panicked, alarmist angle about the threat the U.S. faces, from an ABC TV affiliate in Salt Lake City.
The violence took place in early March in Querétaro, a city roughly the size of Boston. A week later another attack took place 160 miles away in Mexico City. There were apparently three injuries in the first attack and no reports of any serious physical injuries in the second.
Gustavo Arellano, who writes the syndicated column for the Orange County Weekly, “Ask a Mexican”, was predictably obtuse in his commentary. He said–and one can only assume this is an attempt at some kind of ironic sarcasm–that the coverage of this conflict might help build a new image of Mexico for outsiders who, until these illuminating events, saw the country as “a bunch of Cactuses and sombreros.”
From most reports and anti-emo blogging, it seems the toughs in Mexico perceive the emos as too effeminate, and associate them with homosexuality. The “h”s are silent in Spanish, hence, “emosexual” slides right off the tongue. Further, in a gesture of support of the emo cause, a gay rights group in Mexico City–feeling that much of the hatred towards emos is in fact based in gay-bashing–organized a silent demonstration on March 15 as a show of solidarity.
Arellano summarizes Mexican society the same way ex-Southerners living in the north talk about their little hometowns back in Alabama and Mississippi; he said, “What do you do when you are confronted with a question mark about sexuality in Mexico? You beat it up.”
From the YouTube footage it is difficult to discern just how these varying “tribes” distinguish themselves and their brethren-in-hate from the dreaded targets, the emos.
Further reading:
Anti-emo en español:
http://emosexualesenaccion.blogspot.com/
Emo riots in Wired:
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/anti-emo-riots.html