NEW YORK — As R. Kelly’s world was crashing down around him, the R&B superstar made a former employee change into a robe to prove she wasn’t recording their conversation, the woman testified Monday.
Diana Copeland, who worked as an executive assistant for Kelly for 14 years, had already quit her job when the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer summoned her in 2019 to Trump Tower in Chicago, she said.
Rumors about his treatment of women and girls were swirling, fueled by the recent release of the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.”
She was greeted at the luxury apartment by a woman identified in court as Jane, who at the time was dating the singer.
“Jane gave me a robe to put on. She asked me was I wired ... if I had some type of device that would record,” Copeland recalled on the stand at Kelly’s sex trafficking trial in Brooklyn federal court. “I was shocked and I said no.”
While Copeland did not take off everything, she removed her sweatshirt and draped the robe over her tank top.
She said on the stand that she was not wearing a wire and could not remember if she had spoken to prosecutors before meeting Kelly that day.
Prosecutors now consider Jane a victim of Kelly, 54, who was born Robert Sylvester Kelly. She testified against the three-time Grammy Award winner.
At the meeting, Kelly asked Copeland to write a “truthful” letter about how she felt about him, she recalled.
“He has never verbally, physically or mentally abused anybody,” the letter said.
In court, Copeland admitted that the letter should have said she never saw him do those things. She also said that Kelly yelled at her during fights, but that she “would not call it abuse.”
Years earlier, Kelly had forced Copeland write a letter starting she had stolen things from him. She testified that the letter was untrue.
The “Sex Me” singer is accused of heading an elaborate scheme that targeted underage girls and young women for illegal sex. The trial has been underway for more than a month.
Witnesses have testified that Kelly kept many girls and women trapped in rooms for days. They allegedly had to request permission to eat or use the bathroom. He demanded they call him “Daddy” and did not allow them to look at other men, accusers say.
But under cross-examination by Kelly’s lawyers, Copeland proved helpful to the defense, denying some of those allegations from earlier in the trial.
She claimed that it was not true that Kelly would forbid female guests from using the bathroom without permission. She also said she never saw Kelly deny women food and water and that he never locked them in rooms.
