The R. Kelly prosecution finished its case Monday with dramatic testimony from a woman who detailed three-way sexual encounters with the singer and the alleged victim depicted in the sex tape at the heart of the child pornography case.
But the controversial witness didn’t leave the stand before defense attorneys challenged her credibility by calling her a liar and asking her if she demanded $350,000 to change her story.
Lisa Van Allen, 27, denied trying to extort money from Kelly, an ex-lover whom she began seeing when she was 17. The Georgia woman offered a smug smile and occasionally rolled her eyes as Kelly’s lawyers portrayed her as a thieving blackmailer who they say came forward to spare her fiance from going to prison.
“I want to do what is right,” Van Allen said of her motives.
Like 14 previous witnesses, Van Allen, who is four months’ pregnant, identified Kelly and the allegedly then-minor girl as participants in the 27-minute video.
She bolstered the charges against Kelly by telling the jury that Kelly made a similar sex tape with herself and the alleged victim in late 1998. Van Allen testified that video, which she said was filmed in the same location as the one at the center of the trial, could not be entered into evidence because she sold it to the singer’s business manager for $20,000 last year.
Van Allen denied she had blackmailed her former boyfriend. Rather, she described the payment as a gratuity for helping him recover the tape.
The state, which called more than a dozen witnesses over two weeks, rested its case after Van Allen’s testimony. Jurors will get Tuesday off before the defense begins its presentation on Wednesday.
Van Allen testified she met Kelly while working as an extra in his “Home Alone” video in 1997. He allegedly invited her to his on-set trailer, where the two talked and then had sex.
She eventually moved to Chicago to be with Kelly, who was married. She joined him on a two-month concert tour, in which he would “pick” her from the audience each night and pull her up on stage to have simulated sex with him.
Kelly introduced her to the alleged victim in late 1998 and told her that the girl was 16, Van Allen testified. On the night they met, Kelly brought them to his log cabin-themed basement, set up a video camera and recorded a three-way sexual encounter, she said.
A year later, Kelly brought the teens back to his house and filmed them having group sex on a futon mattress placed on Kelly’s indoor basketball court, she said. Van Allen wept as she testified that during the filming she began crying and the singer angrily accused her of ruining the recording.
“He got upset,” she said, wiping away tears. “He said he couldn’t watch that. He couldn’t do anything with me crying.”
By 2001, Van Allen said she returned to Atlanta but remained in contact with Kelly. When he traveled to Georgia later that year, they spent the weekend shopping and having sex, she said. She also admitted stealing a diamond watch from him valued at $20,000 during the visit.
“Before I ended up leaving, I took a Rolex watch from him,” she said.
Van Allen said she knew Kelly had been indicted in June 2002 for a sex tape featuring the Oak Park teen. However, she says she kept quiet because she was preoccupied with the birth of her first child.
Kelly’s defense team, though, grilled her as to why she didn’t come forward as the case languished for nearly six years. In March 2007, she says she contacted Kelly about a videotape she had of the threesome.
Van Allen testified that she took the tapes from the singer’s duffel bag without his knowledge.
“He carried [the bag] everywhere with him,” she said. “Wherever he was at, the bag would follow.”
After telling Kelly she took the tape, the singer flew her to Chicago and put her up in a hotel near his Olympia Fields mansion, Van Allen said. She said she told him she didn’t have the video with her, and he offered to pay her $250,000 to secure it.
Van Allen testified that in a separate meeting with Kelly’s business manager, Derrel McDavid, she and an acquaintance were paid $20,000 apiece for the tape. McDavid, a longtime Kelly associate, denied her allegations Monday evening, calling Van Allen an “admitted thief and liar” in a statement.
Kelly’s team contends Van Allen tried to extort money from Kelly this month during a meeting with defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. and hinted she would switch her story for the right price. According to the defense, Brown said the couple had a $350,000 book deal in the works and it was time Kelly “made things right.”
Under intense questioning during cross-examination, Van Allen said she and Brown told Adam they would only tell the truth.
“The truth is Robert Kelly is a pedophile,” she said. “So you don’t want the truth.”
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TRIAL TIME TRAVELS TO THE 1990S
Not only does the R. Kelly child pornography trial involve salacious video and celebrity guests — including key prosecution witness Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards — but also it has featured mentions of people, places, movies and music popular during the ’90s, when the crime central to the trial allegedly occurred. RedEye pressed rewind to help you remember some of these items:
‘Space Jam’
A 1996 movie starring basketball legend Michael Jordan and an assortment of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes characters, including Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird and the Tazmanian Devil. Kelly scored the soundtrack for the smash film, including the ballad ” I Believe I Can Fly,” and apparently so favored the film that a mural of it was painted on the wall of an indoor basketball court in Kelly’s former Lakeview home. In the colorful mural, which prosecutors showed extreme close-ups of last week to establish the layout of the house, a bald, muscled R. Kelly is depicted facing off against the slobbering, stuttering Tasmanian Devil, aka “Taz D.”
Sparkle
A female singer and former R. Kelly protege, Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards is best known for the “Be Careful” single off her solo-titled album, which debuted in 1998. Shortly after that platinum-selling debut, she broke ties with Kelly and later signed with Motown. Sparkle re-emerged at Kelly’s trial as a key witness for the prosecution. She identified the alleged victim, her niece, and Kelly in the videotape.
Several times during her testimony, Sparkle sparred verbally with Kelly defense attorney Ed Genson, and referred to Kelly dryly as “Robert.”
‘Everybody’
This danceable jam from Backstreet Boys can be heard blasting in the background near the beginning of the videotape central to the case, only to be followed up by “Too Much” by the Spice Girls. But the British girl group’s slow burner is abruptly turned off by the man in the videotape, whom prosecutors allege is Kelly.
– Kyra Kyles, Redeye
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R. KELLY TRIAL: Hollywood style
With secret witnesses, allegations of video “morphing” and an X-rated videotape, the R. Kelly celebri-trial is begging to be made into a movie. RedEye decided to get the ball rolling with a hypothetical casting call. Here are some key players and their Hollywood doppelgangers:
R. Kelly
Usually stoic, but at times sleepy-looking during witness testimony, R. Kelly is best recognized by witnesses for his cornrows and nice suits. The embattled crooner could be convincingly portrayed by R&B artist Jaheim, also partial to cornrows and singing gritty ballads.
Ed Genson KELLY’S ATTORNEY
Ed Genson, known for a cranky and combative style in cross examination, has worked for high-wattage defendants, including Lawrence Warner, a co-defendant in the trial of former Gov. George Ryan (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). As Kelly’s lead attorney, Genson has not deviated from his signature style, digging into witnesses, particularly Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards and her brother Bennie Lee Sr. This legal eagle should be played by Donald Sutherland, due to their similar ‘dos and inherent intensity.
Judge Vincent Gaughan
The Kelly case judge is tough as nails on lawyers and spectators, but shows a soft spot for the jury. How soft? He expresses interest in their enjoyment of their daily lunches and comes down on any attorneys he feels are wasting their time through late arrivals. Gaughan, a decorated Vietnam vet, should be played as strict, but not lacking in a stinging sense of humor. His best bet: Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro.
Prosecutor Shauna Boliker
ASSISTANT STATE’S ATTORNEY
Always chipper and seemingly friendly, even when being reprimanded by Gaughan, Boliker is the Midwest?s own Meg Ryan. Adding to that effect are her blunt bangs a la Ryan in “Joe Versus the Volcano” and radiant smile.
– Kyra Kyles, Redeye
