The now-23-year-old broke down on the stand early this week as she described one of the worst things Kelly allegedly made her do: smear feces on her mouth and eat it.
On video.
"He told me to smear it in my face and what to exactly say and to, like, put it in my mouth and act like I liked, enjoyed that," the woman told jurors on Monday when describing how Kelly would "make me make videos as punishments."
"Did you want to be doing that?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes asked, while Kelly sat across the barren courtroom.
"I did not," Jane firmly answered.
In another video, Jane testified, she was forced to falsely say that her father had molested her while she was still crying from a severe spanking—or "chastisement" as Kelly allegedly called such punishments—for violating one of the singer's rules. The idea, according to prosecutors, was that such a video might be held as leverage against her in the future.
Jane was far from alone in what prosecutors describe as a sordid web of abuse and misconduct. The first witness to testify, Jerhonda Pace, 28, told jurors she was sexually and physically abused by Kelly when she was 16 years old. During their six-month relationship, she said, Kelly also gave her herpes without at least initially disclosing he had the disease. (Jane made a similar allegation.)
Jane's testimony also alluded to other victims, including some who were allegedly kept in a room for three days after buying the wrong sized Hollister sweatpants or beaten with a size 12 Air Force 1 shoe for lying to the singer. And she described other horrors she said the singer imposed on her, like a forced abortion.
But a canvass of legal experts by The Daily Beast concluded that, one week into a trial critics hope will finally provide a reckoning he has long evaded, the feces testimony stands out as a potential emotional linchpin in the case against Kelly. While the testimony didn't necessarily nail any specific charge, experts say, it may serve to pull the rug out from the defense's claim of a consenting relationship.
"It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the defense to argue that was consensual conduct by a girlfriend or mistress, and that image will be etched in the minds of the jurors in the deliberation room," Neama Rahman, a former New York federal prosecutor, told The Daily Beast.
"I don't think you can touch it if you're the defense," he added. "It's so far beyond that pale, that it can blow up in your face on cross-examination if you go there. You just have to generally argue she is a liar in closing."
As of Wednesday morning, defense attorneys had not brought up the feces allegation in Jane's cross-examination—instead initially focusing on trying to discredit her credibility by grilling her on discrepancies between her testimony during the trial and what she has previously told prosecutors. The defense has also argued that Jane lied to Kelly when she told him he was 18 when they first met.
Kelly, 54, faces charges including racketeering based on kidnapping, sexual exploitation of children, and forced labor; he is also charged with violations of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transport of people across state lines for sex. The disgraced singer has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The argument of consensual conduct is at the core of Kelly's defense—that his accusers are simply disgruntled ex-girlfriends who "have an agenda," as defense attorney Nicole Blank Becker put it in opening arguments. While Kelly's defense team declined to comment directly on Jane's feces allegation, their claims in open court seem focused on her being a "liar."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-horrifying-testimony-r-kelly-needs-jurors-to-forget
