R. Kelly's lawyer says Aaliyah can't testify about being a victim in his sex crimes case because she's dead

• Part of the charges against R. Kelly involve allegations that he bribed a government official to give Aaliyah a fake ID.
• Kelly married the late R&B singer when he was 27 and she was 15.
• Kelly's lawyer told the jury Aaliyah can't testify about being a victim in the case because she's dead.

A defense attorney for R. Kelly questioned the charges he faces in his federal sex crimes trial surrounding his marriage to Aaliyah, pointing out that the iconic R&B singer is dead and can't testify against him.

In part of their wide-ranging indictment against Kelly, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn allege he instructed an employee to bribe a government official to produce a fake ID for Aaliyah in 1994.

Kelly, who was 27 at the time, then married Aaliyah, who was only 15. Prosecutors said Kelly first met Aaliyah when she was 12 years old, and alleged he started regularly having sex with her shortly afterward.

Assistant US Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez said in Wednesday's opening statements that procuring the fake ID was part of a harebrained scheme to silence Aaliyah. Aaliyah had told Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - that she was pregnant, Cruz Melendez said.

Kelly believed Aaliyah couldn't make any criminal allegations of sexual misconduct against him if they were married, the prosecutor said, so he paid a local official $500 for a fake ID for the 15-year-old - then flew out to a Chicago hotel suite in the middle of the night and married her there.

The marriage was annulled less than a year later. Aaliyah was killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas in 2001.

Nicole Blank Becker, the attorney representing Kelly, pointed out in her opening statements Wednesday that while the jury may hear testimony from Aaliyah's friends and family, Aaliyah herself could not possibly testify herself about being a victim in the case because she was dead.

Becker said there's no evidence the singer, identified as Jane Doe #1 in charging documents, was even pregnant in the first place.

"Aaliyah, God rest her soul, passed away," she said, before urging jurors to hold the defense to proving she was pregnant.

Becker also urged the jury to be skeptical about the fake ID story.

"If Mr. Kelly was involved in a crime in 1994 would we be here today?" she said before being stopped by Judge Ann Donnelly, who instructed Becker to discuss only the evidence in the case.

The charges regarding Kelly's short-lived sham marriage with Aaliyah form only a small part of the indictment, first brought against Kelly in 2019.

Prosecutors say Kelly's inner circle amounted to a criminal enterprise. His employees not only sustained his music career, but lured girls into having sex with him and imposed his will upon them, according to prosecutors.

"This case is about a predator," Cruz Melendez said Wednesday. "A man who for decades used his fame and his popularity in order to target girls, boys, and young women for his own sexual gratification."