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NEW YORK (AP) — R. Kelly’s fate is now in a jury’s hands after weeks of lurid testimony in his sexual misconduct trial.
The panel of seven men and five women began deliberating racketeering and sex trafficking charges against the R&B superstar Friday afternoon, ending the day without reaching a verdict They are due back in court on Monday to resume their work.
A couple hours into the deliberations, the jurors sent the judge a note asking to review a transcript of testimony and evidence regarding a woman who claimed Kelly sexually assaulted her in 2003 when she was a 21-year-old radio station intern. She testified she was kept locked up in a recording studio for days and drugged before the assault.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys finished their closing arguments this week. The 54-year-old singer is accused of running a Chicago-based criminal enterprise that recruited his accusers for unwanted sex and mental torment.
The witnesses said Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Kelly “believed the music, the fame and the celebrity meant he could do whatever he wanted,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Shihata said in federal court in Brooklyn in a fiery rebuttal to the defense’s closing argument that portrayed Kelly as a victim of false accusations.
But, she added, “He’s not a genius, he’s a criminal. A predator.” She added that his alleged victims “aren’t groupies or gold diggers. They’re human beings.”
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