NEW YORK — A 17-year-old girl on Monday recounted getting herpes from R&B superstar R. Kelly.
The witness, who identified herself on the stand in Brooklyn federal court using the pseudonym Jane, first met Kelly in a room at the Dolphin Hotel in Orlando, Florida, just days after meeting him at an April 2015 concert in the city.
But once in the hotel room, Kelly instead forced her to get naked and walk back and forth before performing a sex act on his underage victim, she testified.
While the two were alone in the room, two Florida police officers knocked at the door. Kelly yelled at Jane to get dressed in the bathroom, she said.
“He was very anxious and scared,” she testified. “He said, ‘Are you 18?’ I said yes. He said ‘Don’t lie to me.’”
The officers were looking for the girl in response to a 911 call from her parents, who contacted authorities after being unable to reach her. Kelly had made her turn off her phone because he feared being recorded, she testified.
The officers looked at the girl’s driver's license, which noted her age, but did not ask any questions about sex.
“They said if he [Kelly] was ever in Orlando and needed security to let them know,” the alleged victim, who is now 23, testified.
The victim’s testimony comes during the second week of Kelly’s sex abuse trial. Robert Sylvester Kelly, 54, is accused of trafficking women and girls for illegal sexual activity. He is also accused of knowingly giving herpes to some of his victims, which is a crime in some states.
After her initial meeting with Kelly in Orlando, Jane began traveling the country to attend R. Kelly shows on the singer’s dime, she testified. She hoped he would jump-start her own singing career.
But Kelly was much more focused on sex, she testified.
As their relationship progressed, R. Kelly began introducing rules into the high school junior’s life, instructing her to wear “loose and baggy” clothing and call him “Daddy,” she testified.
In Las Vegas, when the girl texted Kelly’s assistant asking if she could go to the mall, Kelly’s assistant did not approve.
“Is Mr. Kelly okay with you going out of your room?” the assistant asked the girl.
“I didn’t ask him,” the girl responded.
“We will need to make sure it’s okay,” the assistant responded.
Less than a month into knowing Kelly, the two had sexual intercourse for the first time, and the singer did not mention that he had previously been diagnosed with herpes.
She contracted herpes from Kelly, she testified, weeping on the stand.
“I felt this man had purposely given me something he knew he had. ... He was agitated and said I could have gotten that from anyone,” she recalled, even though she had never had sex with anyone else.
Kelly had a heartless response to her constant herpes outbreaks after sex.
“I think your p---y is broken,” she recalled him saying.
She confessed her true age to Kelly in Chicago, telling him she was 17.
“He slapped me in my face with an open palm. ... He had never hit me ever before,” she testified.
But Kelly’s anger quickly faded and he told her he would speak to his attorneys about the situation.
