- A former studio manager for
R. Kelly testified about the singer's erratic behavior as a boss. - Kelly once erupted when he didn't get a female tour guide at Disney World, Tom Arnold said.
- Arnold said on Thursday that Kelly docked the pay of his employees for minor infractions.
In addition to being accused of sex crimes in which he physically abused women and forbade them from going to the bathroom, R. Kelly was also a terrible boss, according to one of his former studio managers.
Tom Arnold, who worked for Kelly between 2004 and 2011, told jurors in testimony Thursday that the R&B singer docked his entire paycheck when he couldn't get a female tour guide during a visit to Walt Disney World in Florida.
"It needed to be a woman," Arnold said. "His request was that it would be a female tour guide."
Kelly is standing trial for a litany of sex-crime charges in federal court in Brooklyn. Prosecutors alleged the "I Believe I Can Fly" singer directed employees to recruit women for sex and that he sexually abused his many "girlfriends."
Prosecutors asked Arnold in court Wednesday and Thursday about how Kelly directed the people around him. Arnold managed the singer's studio in the basement of his Olympia Fields mansion outside of Chicago, where women say he forced them to remain for days at a time - sometimes without permitting them to leave their rooms to use the bathroom. Arnold also occasionally served as Kelly's road manager and held other responsibilities.
Arnold detailed how Kelly's employees maintained slips of paper with his phone number on them and gave them to women at concerts and parties at Kelly's direction. The testimony appeared to corroborate a witness who took the stand earlier at the trial, saying that her relationship with the singer began when she attended one of his concerts as a teenager. She'd said a member of Kelly's entourage handed her a piece of paper with his phone number.
In his testimony, Arnold also disclosed some of Kelly's more ostentatious quirks. He maintained a massive aquarium with sharks and large fish in the basement of his home. And among the people he employed was a man named Bubba, whose entire job was to be available to play basketball whenever Kelly wanted to, Arnold said.
Arnold said everyone who entered the Olympia Fields property was made to sign a nondisclosure agreement that forbade them from taking photos or recording anything. He also said Kelly instructed him and other employees to "scatter" whenever a "female guest" entered the room.
"If it was a female guest, we would just clear out," he said, adding: "That was what we were instructed to do, just leave the area."
Arnold testified that Kelly frequently docked pay for minor infractions. Kelly slashed money from a paycheck because Arnold once purchased a sweatband for one of Kelly's "girlfriends" who lived with him, who he was forbidden to speak to. On another occasion, he said, Kelly's entire entourage had its pay docked because someone ate the singer's doughnuts.
"We were all fined because someone ate his doughnuts," he said.
Arnold's breaking point was after the Disney World trip, in 2011, he said. He had been tasked with booking hotel rooms and a female tour guide for the trip. But when he called Disney, only male tour guides were available, he was told. When Kelly's tour bus rolled up to the park, the singer saw the male tour guide and erupted, Arnold said.
A few days later, Arnold's wife called him. His paycheck had arrived in the mail. Taxes had been taken out, but the remaining balance he was paid was $0, Arnold said.
Soon afterward, he quit.