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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Defense lawyer <keyword id="12307848" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="deveraux-cannick" source="Orion">Deveraux Cannick</keyword> questioned the credibility of <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>'s accusers during his criminal trial.</li><li>Numerous women and two men testified that the singer sexually abused them. A jury ultimately convicted Kelly on all counts.</li></ul>A defense lawyer for R. Kelly who tried to discredit nearly every accuser in the singer's sex crimes trial told Insider he still believes his client had consensual relationships with many of the witnesses who testified that he sexually abused them.Last month R. Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - was <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-verdict-sex-crimes-trial-2021-9">convicted of racketeering,</a> for essentially running a criminal organization to procure women for sex, and of violating the Mann Act, which forbids bringing people across state lines for illegal sex acts."These people were in relationships with him," the singer's lawyer, Deveraux Cannick, said. "And whatever you may have thought of that relationship, this was a relationship that they bought into, they consented, and these were long-standing relationships. I don't even think it was a #MeToo issue."Many of the accusers who testified against Kelly said they met him when they were teenagers. Several testified that they met with the towering R&amp;B figure with the expectation that he'd watch their auditions, and <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-aaliyah-marriage-foreshadowed-decades-sexual-abuse-allegations-2021-9">hoped he'd advance their music careers</a>.Gloria Allred, who represented three witnesses in the trial, told journalists after the verdict that Kelly's use of his fame and money to indoctrinate and punish his victims made him "the worst" sexual predator she has ever pursued."First, he used the power of a <keyword id="6355064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="celebrity" source="Orion">celebrity</keyword> to recruit vulnerable underage girls for the purpose of sexually abusing them," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCxrKYALPdg">the attorney said</a>. "Second he used the power of his business enterprise, and many of his inner circle employees, to assist him and enable him in his plan."As prosecutors questioned nine women and two men about sexual encounters with Kelly and their stories of abuse, Cannick was the person who had the task of raising questions about whether Kelly pursued those accusers - or they pursued Kelly.Of the <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/legal-and-management/9641815/how-r-kelly-legal-defense-lost-trial">four people on Kelly's legal team</a>, he appeared to do most of the work, cross-examining almost every witness prosecutors brought and conducting the direct examination of every defense witness.<div type="image" title="deveraux cannick r kelly" height="1814" width="2419" msid="87007637" hostid="261"></div>Cannick told Insider his goal was to try to show jurors that the witnesses were not credible, arguing that prosecutors went after Kelly because of the attention brought from Lifetime's "Surviving R. Kelly" docuseries. Many of the people who accused Kelly of abuse in the documentary also testified against him in the trial.According to Cannick, Kelly's relationships with his girlfriends, many of which he had simultaneously, were each independent of one another."They were basically stringing a bunch of independent relationships together," he said, adding: "I was hoping the jury would be strong enough to see the witnesses were not credible and it was not a credible case."The jurors disagreed, <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-verdict-sex-crimes-trial-2021-9">finding Kelly guilty on all counts</a>.<h2>Cannick tried to discredit accusers who said Kelly sexually abused them</h2>Cannick <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-is-like-mlk-mike-pence-defense-closing-argument-2021-9">gave the defense team's closing statements</a>, arguing that Kelly's love life may have been unusual, but not criminal. He invoked Martin Luther King Jr., paraphrasing "I've Been to the Mountaintop" in asking jurors to acquit Kelly."I do think that it takes a great deal of courage to tell the government that 'you're wrong,'" Cannick said. "And I think, what better example of that courage than Dr. King. He's my hero."Judge Ann Donnelly, who oversaw the trial, stopped Cannick several times while he questioned witnesses, including on occasions when he tried to ask about statements they may have made on "Surviving R. Kelly."According to Cannick, the defense lawyers couldn't use all the evidence they wanted to in the trial. He claimed that notes FBI agents took while interviewing accusers told more complicated, or contradictory, stories about Kelly's multiple "girlfriends." Jerhonda Pace had "no relationship" with the singer and <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-lawyer-asks-accuser-if-she-was-groupie-16-2021-8">was a mere "groupie,"</a> Cannick said, even as <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-describes-how-he-trained-sex-crimes-trial-2021-8">she testified under oath</a> that she had a sexually abusive relationship with Kelly for nine months.<div type="image" title="R kelly trial illustration" height="2268" width="3024" msid="87007639" hostid="261"></div>Cannick alleged that the parents of another woman, <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-details-abortion-bizarre-rules-shocking-testimony-2021-8">who testified under a pseudonym,</a> directed her to pursue Kelly. The woman testified that Kelly repeatedly sexually abused her over years, gave her herpes, made her eat feces on camera, and made her get an abortion - all while promising they had a future together.While cross-examining the accuser, <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-lawyer-twerking-sex-crimes-trial-2021-8">Cannick grilled her about whether she was "twerking" at the concert</a> where she first met Kelly. He told Insider his questions were an attempt to demonstrate to the jury that Kelly wasn't preying on women, but that they pursued him as well."This was no targeting," Cannick told Insider. "People were trying to get his attention as much as he was trying to get their attention ... She was on the speaker dancing in that way to get his attention."The verdict demonstrates that approach backfired: Jurors may have had a tough time viewing a wealthy international superstar on equal footing with his accusers, many of whom were teenagers when they entered relationships with Kelly.<div type="image" title="r kelly trial accuser deveraux cannick" height="2268" width="3024" msid="87007642" hostid="261"></div>"It's as if we took a time machine to a courthouse back in the 1950s," prosecutor Nadia Shihata said in closing arguments. "What they're basically arguing is that all these women and girls were asking for it, and that they deserved what they got."Kelly himself ultimately declined to testify in the case. Cannick told Insider that "a part of him really wanted to testify" before the singer decided against it.Aside from Kelly's guilty verdict in New York, he faces a separate set of charges from federal prosecutors in Chicago, as well as state-level charges in Illinois and Minnesota. He's pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.Kelly plans to appeal the verdict against him and is "hopeful that an appellate court will see it the way we saw it," Cannick said."He was disappointed, but he knows that he gets to live for another day," Cannick said. "That's the verdict now. The process continues."

R. Kelly's lawyer defends his strategy of attacking the singer's accusers: 'I don't even think it was a #MeToo issue'

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword> lawyer Devereaux Cannick asked a witness Tuesday if the singer's accusers were twerking.</li><li>"Twerking is a vulgar dance, right?" he asked, and inquired whether they were "shaking their butts."</li><li>Cannick grilled an accuser earlier in the trial over whether she twerked.</li></ul>A defense attorney for R. Kelly has repeatedly questioned witnesses at the singer's sex crimes trial about women twerking around the singer, asking one witness on the stand Tuesday whether his "girlfriends" were "shaking their butts.""Twerking is a vulgar dance, right?" attorney Deveraux Cannick asked Suzette Mayweather, one of Kelly's former assistants, adding: "It's when they were shaking their butts, right?"Cannick's questions came during cross-examination Tuesday for Suzette Mayweather, who worked as an assistant for Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly. Mayweather worked for the singer between 2015 and 2017, along with her twin sister. Kelly called both of them "Twin," she said.Mayweather, testifying under subpoena, <a href="https://www.insider.com/how-r-kelly-controlled-accusers-strict-rules-2021-8">described how Kelly controlled his various "girlfriends"</a> while living in Chicago's Trump Tower and traveling around on tour. The women needed to wear baggy clothes, were not permitted to look at, or interact with other men, and could not use the bathroom without his permission, Mayweather said."They were not at liberty to move around without asking him first," she said.<a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-sex-crimes-trial-opening-statements-2021-8">Prosecutors have accused Kelly of numerous sex crimes</a>, accusing him of directing employees to procure women for sex, and then sexually abusing them. Several accusers <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-describes-how-he-trained-sex-crimes-trial-2021-8">have already testified in the trial,</a> which is expected to last through the end of September and is taking place in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, and have described how Kelly maintained control over the minutiae of their everyday lives. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.Mayweather testified about a birthday party in January 2016, held in Kelly's downtown Chicago music studio. She said all of Kelly's girlfriends attended, as well as people related to Kelly's family friends. Mayweather said Kelly had grown upset at his "girlfriends" because of their behavior at the party."He didn't like an incident where they were twerking for cake," Mayweather testified.<div type="image" title="deveraux cannick r kelly trial" height="2335" width="3500" msid="85820739" hostid="261"></div>Cannick seized on the comment during cross-examination Tuesday afternoon, asking whether twerking is a "vulgar dance" and involves "shaking butts" while questioning Mayweather in front of the jury.The move, <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/51365/what-origin-twerking">with origins in hip hop music</a>, does indeed involve derrier dancing and briefly became a meme of sorts after pop singer Miley Cyrus performed it at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards.Cannick pressed Mayweather more on the dancing."You ever heard of 'dropping'?" he asked, apparently referring to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/dec/01/slutdropping-empowering-dance-move">another dance move popular at nightclubs</a>.But prosecutors objected to the question - Mayweather had not testified about "dropping" - and Cannick withdrew the question after chuckling for several seconds.<h2>This isn't the first time Cannick asked about twerking</h2>Cannick, one of four attorneys representing Kelly in the case, had previously asked questions about twerking to other witnesses. One <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-details-abortion-bizarre-rules-shocking-testimony-2021-8">accuser who testified in the trial last week</a> said she met Kelly when she was 17 years old after one of his concerts.She said that, during the concert, a member of his entourage invited her close to the stage, and that she danced. Cannick grilled her about the dancing. "Did you twerk?" Cannick asked. The accuser said she was "moving my body just like everyone else.""But when you were moving your body just like everybody else, you were twerking, weren't you?" Cannick thundered in response.In questioning yet another accuser earlier in the trial, who said Kelly had sex with her when she was 16, Cannick <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-lawyer-asks-accuser-if-she-was-groupie-16-2021-8">asked if she identified as a "groupie."</a>Later Tuesday as Cannick questioned Mayweather on the stand, he asked Ann Donnelly, the judge presiding over the case, if they could take a break. He appeared disorganized, taking several minutes to go through his notes and figuring out which questions he should continue to ask her.

'Twerking is a vulgar dance': R. Kelly's lawyer keeps asking about his accusers' dancing at the singer's sex crimes trial

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Jurors began deliberating Friday in <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>'s federal sex crimes trial in <keyword id="11892836" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="new-york" source="Orion">New York</keyword>.</li><li>The singer is accused of running an enterprise that helped him recruit and groom victims for <keyword id="11910913" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sexual-abuse" source="Orion">sexual abuse</keyword>.</li><li>The jury is partially sequestered, and is expected to review trial evidence before returning its verdict.</li></ul>Jurors began deliberations Friday in <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-sex-crimes-trial-racketeering-allegations-explained-2021-8">R. Kelly's federal sex crimes trial</a>. <a href="https://www.insider.com/jurors-selected-r-kelly-sex-abuse-trial-brooklyn-federal-court-2021-8">Seven men and five women</a> will decide whether Kelly is guilty of running an enterprise that assisted him in recruiting, grooming, and sexually abusing boys, girls, and women for more than two decades.A judge instructed the jury on their role in the case Friday morning. While jurors were presented with a dense package of evidence and testimony, they only need to agree that Kelly committed two alleged offenses in order to convict him of racketeering, <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-sex-crimes-trial-racketeering-allegations-explained-2021-8">a statute</a> most commonly used to prosecute mobsters and organized criminals.A majority of the allegations against Kelly fall under a single racketeering charge. He is accused of 14 individual acts of racketeering, including crimes of bribery, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, transportation of minors and other individuals for the purpose of engaging in illegal sexual activity, illegal coercion and enticement of individuals, and forced labor.Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, also was indicted on eight counts of violating the Mann Act. The statute criminalizes bringing women and girls across state lines for the purpose of illegal sex acts. The singer has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.<h2>A lengthy trial heads to its conclusion</h2>Jurors heard testimony from 50 witnesses over the course of five weeks at the Brooklyn Federal Court Building.Prosecutors called 11 accusers to the stand, along with dozens of former employees, associates, and experts, to build a case around the theory that the singer used his <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-prosecution-closing-argument-enablers-helped-foster-sexual-abuse-2021-9">inner circle and entourage</a> to further and maintain his predatory behavior. Jury instructions began following a rebuttal from Assistant US Attorney Nadia Shihata. She urged jurors to believe testimony from accusers in the trial, and said that other witnesses and the hundreds of pieces of evidence prosecutors filed all corroborated their stories."The defendant's victims aren't groupies or gold-diggers," Shihata said. "They're human beings. They're daughters, sisters, some of them are now mothers. And their lives matter."As a part of the racketeering and Mann Act case, Kelly is accused of having an employee bribe an Illinois official to obtain a fake ID for 15-year-old Aaliyah. <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-married-aaliyah-to-get-abortion-accuser-testifies-2021-8">Kelly believed he impregnated Aaliyah</a>, witnesses testified, and wanted to marry her so that she could obtain an abortion.<div type="image" title="r kelly courtroom prosecutor team" height="2268" width="3024" msid="86490059" hostid="261"></div>In addition to transporting his young victims - many of them only teenagers at the time - across state lines for sex, prosecutors also allege that Kelly knowingly had sex with several girls and young women without disclosing his positive herpes diagnosis. Several of his sexual partners testified that they contracted the incurable virus during their relationships with him. His accusers also testified that the singer has an explosive temper, and was physically and mentally abusive toward them when they didn't follow his <a href="https://www.insider.com/how-r-kelly-controlled-accusers-strict-rules-2021-8">strict set of rules.</a>The defense case, which spanned just three days of testimony, included five witnesses who knew Kelly and said they <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-defense-rests-witnesses-never-saw-singer-abuse-anyone-2021-9">didn't see him abuse or control women when they were around.</a><h2>Prosecutors say Kelly ran an enterprise</h2>In <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-prosecution-closing-argument-enablers-helped-foster-sexual-abuse-2021-9">the prosecution's closing argument</a>, Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Geddes told jurors they didn't need to believe that every person in Kelly's entourage had criminal intent, or even liked Kelly's behavior, in order to find he ran an enterprise. The mere existence of the group made Kelly more powerful and assisted him in getting away with his crimes for as long as he did, she said."The law recognizes that when someone commits a <keyword id="11893298" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="crime" source="Orion">crime</keyword> as part of a group, he's more powerful, more dangerous," Geddes said. "Put simply, racketeering means that the defendant was part of a group of people who were working toward a common goal."<div type="image" title="deveraux cannick r kelly" height="1814" width="2419" msid="86490062" hostid="261"></div>In <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-is-like-mlk-mike-pence-defense-closing-argument-2021-9">closing arguments for the defense</a>, Kelly's attorney, Deveraux Cannick, argued that the singer's relationships with his many "girlfriends" were consensual and that the accusers were all liars who sought to profit from their stories."His label marketed him as a sex symbol, a playboy. So he started living that lifestyle," Cannick said Thursday. "It's a lifestyle, not a crime."Shihata said Cannick's arguments amounted to victim-blaming, and that he wanted the jury to give Kelly "a pass" because of his <keyword id="6355064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="celebrity" source="Orion">celebrity</keyword>."Writing hit songs and performing for audiences on stage doesn't give you the license to commit crimes," she told jurors Friday.The jury, which is partially sequestered, is expected to review trial evidence and transcripts of testimony before returning its verdict.

R. Kelly's sex crimes case is going before jurors. Here's what they need to agree on to reach a verdict.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A personal assistant of <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>'s testified Tuesday in the singer's sex crimes trial.</li><li>She described how an 18-year-old "girlfriend" of Kelly's stayed on a bus overnight and "looked rough."</li><li>"When she gets to Florida she should NEVER come back," the assistant wrote in a text message at the time.</li></ul>A former assistant to R. Kelly testified Tuesday at the singer's sex crimes trial about her concern for his "girlfriends," reading a text message in which she'd said one 18-year-old should leave and "never come back."The former personal assistant, Aliciette Mayweather, read to the jury from dozens of texts she sent to Kelly and other employees while she worked for the singer. On one occasion in May 2016, she supervised an 18-year-old "girlfriend" of Kelly's, identified as "Jane," who had slept overnight in a tour bus parked outside his Chicago music studio.Mayweather texted another Kelly employee that Jane "looked rough" and that her eyes were "puffy," suggesting she go back to her home in Florida."When she gets to Florida she should NEVER come back," Mayweather wrote in the text message. "She should be living the life of a 18-year-old high school senior."On Monday and Tuesday, Mayweather testified about working as an assistant for Kelly between December 2015 and June 2016. At times she worked in tandem with <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-lawyer-twerking-sex-crimes-trial-2021-8">her twin sister, Suzette Mayweather, who testified earlier in the trial</a>.Prosecutors have accused Kelly of directing employees to procure women for sex, and then sexually abusing them. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his trial in Brooklyn federal court is in its fourth week of testimony.The "Jane" who Aliciette Mayweather referred to on the stand <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-details-abortion-bizarre-rules-shocking-testimony-2021-8">testified earlier in the trial</a>. She accused Kelly of perpetuating years of sexual and physical abuse, and described for jruors the bizarre and cult-like rules Kelly imposed on her - from dictating when she could go to the bathroom to forcing her to get an abortion.<div type="image" title="R. Kelly" height="2268" width="3024" msid="86211039" hostid="261"></div>Mayweather testified that she never personally saw Kelly assault or abuse anyone. But she described circumstances where younger women around Kelly appeared hurt.Jane was close to graduating high school when Mayweather said she slept on the tour bus; Kelly was 49 at the time. It wasn't clear from Mayweather's testimony why Jane wasn't allowed to enter the Chicago studio, which had bedrooms."Something is REALLY strange about the behavior and treatment of the little one," Mayweather texted another employee. "The punishment is REAL." Kelly's "punishment" may have extended to other women with whom the singer had closer relationships, Mayweather testified. She said Kelly told her he'd punished "Juice," another young woman in Kelly's orbit.Suzette Mayweather previously testified that Juice was a family friend of Kelly's, and <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-describes-how-he-trained-sex-crimes-trial-2021-8">other accusers in the trial</a> said Juice often led the way in bringing other women into sexual activities with the singer."Juice gets punished, too," Kelly told Mayweather, she testified.In cross-examination, Kelly's lawyer, Deveraux Cannick, suggested that Jane had to stay on the tour bus in order to finish work she needed to graduate high school. He described it as a "luxury" bus, saying it had beds, a refrigerator, and a microwave. Cannick pointed out that Kelly himself would stay on the bus for long periods of time while traversing the country for concerts.Mayweather disagreed with that characterization."I wouldn't call it luxury," she said.

An R. Kelly assistant said one of his 18-year-old accusers should run and 'never come back,' text messages show

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A man testified on Monday in <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>'s trial that the singer sexually assaulted him when he was 17.</li><li>He said Kelly invited him to a studio but instead brought him to his home and performed oral sex.</li><li>The man testified that Kelly sexually assaulted him on numerous subsequent occasions.</li></ul>The first man to publicly accuse R. Kelly of sexual misconduct testified on Monday at the singer's federal sex-crimes trial, saying Kelly sexually assaulted him repeatedly while he was a 17-year-old high-school student.Testifying under the pseudonym "Louis," the man said he met Kelly in 2006 while working the overnight shift at a McDonald's drive-thru in suburban Chicago.Kelly, who was 39 at the time, asked for the phone number of Louis' female manager and gave Louis a slip of paper with his own phone number to thank him, Louis said.Louis, an aspiring R&amp;B musician himself, texted Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - and was invited to one of the singer's studios to play some music he had worked on, he said.But Louis didn't get very far."He let the song play for only five seconds and he said he didn't like it," Louis said.Louis left the studio discouraged that "the king of R&amp;B" wasn't interested in his music. But he continued to text Kelly and later saw him at a gym around the corner from the McDonald's where he worked in Markham, Illinois. Soon enough, he said, he was regularly invited to Kelly's home for parties and to play basketball with the singer.<h2>'We're brothers now'</h2>Kelly ultimately invited Louis to a studio at his home in Olympia Fields, another suburb of Chicago. But Louis said they met in a detached garage where Kelly had exercise equipment and a boxing ring, rather than in one of the studios the singer maintained in the main building."He asked me what I was willing to do for music," Louis said on the stand.Louis rattled off ways he would assist Kelly, like carrying his bags. But Kelly appeared unreceptive, he said."He asked me if I had any fantasies," Louis said, then quoted Kelly as saying, "You never had fantasies about men?""I said no," Louis continued. "And then he crawled down on his knees and proceeded to give me oral sex. He zipped my pants down and he started doing it."<div type="image" title="louis r kelly trial" height="2268" width="3024" msid="85782888" hostid="261"></div>Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have accused Kelly of numerous sex crimes, saying he directed people to produce women for sex and then abused them. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.The indictments identified over a dozen women and two men who prosecutors say Kelly sexually abused. Four of those women have already testified in Kelly's trial. All of them said they, too, had aspirations in the entertainment industry when they met Kelly.On that first occasion Kelly performed oral sex, Louis told the singer to stop, he testified. After Kelly stepped back, he swore Louis to secrecy, Louis said."Don't tell anyone," Kelly said, according to Louis. "We're brothers now."Louis said he continued to see Kelly, still hoping to be mentored for his music career. He said Kelly sexually abused him on subsequent occasions, recording those encounters on an iPad and camcorders and asking that he call him "daddy."Other women who previously testified in Kelly's trial also said Kelly recorded their sexual encounters and demanded they call him "daddy."Louis said that after additional encounters, Kelly's attitude toward him changed."As our relationship got stronger, he said I was like a brother," Louis said. "I was his 'little brother.'"<h2>Louis tried to bribe another R. Kelly accuser so she wouldn't testify</h2>Louis said he last saw Kelly in person in the late 2010s, in the hallway outside the singer's apartment in Chicago's Trump Tower. Kelly had summoned him there to talk, saying he needed "protection," Louis said.In the hallway, Kelly told Louis to write a letter saying that someone planned to pay him to say he was in a homosexual relationship with Kelly, Louis said. Louis testified that the letter's content wasn't true."He gave me the notepad, and I wrote the letter," Louis said on the stand. "He told me word for word what to say."Other witnesses <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-details-abortion-bizarre-rules-shocking-testimony-2021-8">also testified</a> that Kelly had forced them to write false letters distorting their relationship with the singer, at times even falsely saying they'd stolen from him.<div type="image" title="r kelly trial" height="2268" width="3024" msid="85783931" hostid="261"></div>Louis appeared uncomfortable while testifying. He spoke softly and haltingly, using few words when answering questions posed by Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Geddes and Kelly's attorney Deveraux Cannick.In August 2020, prosecutors accused Louis of attempting to bribe another witness not to testify against Kelly. Louis pleaded guilty to bribery in February and, facing a 15-year prison sentence, agreed to testify in the Brooklyn trial as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.In phone records included in the original charging documents, Louis suggested that Kelly would pay for the bribe. But on the stand, he testified that Kelly - in jail at the time - wasn't involved in the scheme and that he'd come up with it on his own. Prosecutors have not brought any charges against Kelly related to the bribery.While cross-examining Louis, Cannick suggested he had an incentive to tell a story that maligned Kelly to fulfill the terms of his cooperation agreement.<div type="image" title="r kelly trial louis devereaux cannick" height="2268" width="3024" msid="85783934" hostid="261"></div>However, Cannick struggled to come up with factual discrepancies in Louis' story. He spent several minutes asking Louis why he testified that Kelly had opened the door to his Olympia Fields home on the day Louis said Kelly sexually assaulted him for the first time, when Louis had said at another point that a person named "Candy" handled security at the door. Louis said Candy simply wasn't there that day.Louis testified that one reason he'd tried to bribe the other accuser was to help both of them. He said that he believed the woman might have recordings of sexual encounters with Kelly and that he hoped they would never see the light of day.Despite his past, Louis said he still hoped to "make it in music." Geddes asked Louis the same question prosecutors asked other witnesses who said Kelly had promised to bolster their music careers: What, if anything, did the singer do to help?Louis gave the same answer as every other witness."Nothing," he testified.

The first man to accuse R. Kelly of sexual abuse testifies that the singer asked him what he was 'willing to do for music'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A woman said at <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>'s trial she was locked in his studio for days when she was a radio intern.</li><li>She traveled to Chicago in hopes of an interview, but was sexually assaulted instead, she said.</li><li>The woman, now 39, said she didn't report the <keyword id="11893298" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="crime" source="Orion">crime</keyword> because she felt threatened by R. Kelly's team.</li></ul>A 39-year-old woman identified as Sonya, testified in R. Kelly's sex-crimes trial Thursday that she had been sexually abused by him when she was a radio station intern seeking an interview in 2003. The accuser said she had met Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - at a mall in Salt Lake City and hoped to get an interview with him, but was denied the initial opportunity. Instead she was given his number, and after a few conversations was invited to his studio in Chicago where she hoped to land the interview. "I thought it would really just kick-start my career," she told the jury. When Sonya arrived at the studio, however, she said Kelly's employees met her and collected information about her friends and family, then made her sign a confidentiality agreement, and locked her in a room. After more than two days with no food or water, Sonya said she was finally brought a meal, which she said made her feel drowsy and fall unconscious.When she awoke, her underwear had been removed, her vaginal area was wet, and Kelly was in the corner "doing up his pants," Sonya testified."I was sexually assaulted," Sonya told the jury, when asked what she believed happened to her. "Someone was inside of me that wasn't invited." Kelly is on trial in federal court in Brooklyn <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nyed.434840/gov.uscourts.nyed.434840.43.0_1.pdf">on charges of running a criminal enterprise</a> where his employees recruited women and girls for the singer to have sex with and abuse. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to the charges.<div type="image" title="R kelly trial illustration" height="2268" width="3024" msid="86081490" hostid="261"></div><h2>Sonya never got her interview </h2>At the time Sonya met Kelly, she was a single mother in her early 20s, just starting out in her radio career - something she'd been interested in since junior high, she said. Kelly's staff had arranged and paid for her flight to Chicago from Salt Lake City. While she missed the first flight, she got a later one that landed her in Chicago in the middle of the night. After taking a taxi to Kelly's music studio, "The Chocolate Factory," staff at the front desk made a copy of her ID, looked though her luggage, and asked for the names and addresses of the last five people she had called with the cellphone she brought with her, she testified.A staff member also asked her if she "needed protection," which she initially didn't understand, but then realized he was asking if she needed a condom. She told the man she "wasn't here for that," she said.That's when staff took her to a room, where she was told to wait for Kelly. When she realized the door locked from the outside, Sonya testified that she was "terrified" and "embarrassed." She had banged on the door to be let out, but wasn't, except to be escorted to and from a bathroom, she said.Eventually, a staff member brought her Chinese food and a drink. After taking a few bites and a couple of sips, Sonya became "extremely full and tired," before awaking to find her underwear on the arm of a sofa, and to see Kelly in the room. "I didn't know where I was at," Sonya told the jury. "It made me feel like something happened to me. It felt like somebody or something had been inside of me." After quickly greeting Kelly, he left the room. A staff member later came in and told Sonya she was free to leave, after making her sign a second confidentiality agreement. She never got an interview with Kelly.<div type="image" title="R. Kelly appears in court in Chicago in 2019." height="2000" width="3000" msid="86081495" hostid="261"></div>Sonya shared her story on the 13th day of testimony in the trial, in which jurors have already heard from several other accusers and former employees of the singer - some of whom had already spoken publicly about their relationships with Kelly.Sonya, however, had never shared her experience publicly until taking the stand on Thursday. Kelly's defense attorney Deveraux L. Cannick aggressively cross-examined the woman about her time in the studio, repeatedly having her admit that she didn't report the "alleged <keyword id="11911221" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="rape" source="Orion">rape</keyword>" to police after being allowed to leave the studio, or calling 911 from inside the room from a cellphone she had. At one point, he asked her if the Chinese food she ate had MSG in it, which she said she didn't know. Sonya didn't tell law enforcement about the experience until after the "Surviving R. Kelly" documentary was released and she spoke with <keyword id="6355064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="celebrity" source="Orion">celebrity</keyword> lawyer Gloria Allred.When asked by the prosecution on redirect why she waited that long to report the assault, Sonya said she felt threatened by Kelly's team, who had told her "Don't fuck with Mr. Kelly," before she was allowed to leave. In addition to being unsure about the terms of the confidentiality agreements she signed, Kelly's team had the names, phone numbers, and addresses of the "people I cherished most," she said.

A radio station intern went to R. Kelly's studio for her big break, but ended up locked in a room for days and assaulted, she testified

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Insider reporters Haven Orecchio-Egresitz and Jacob Shamsian covered <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>'s sex crimes case for seven weeks.</li><li>COVID-19 restrictions and Kelly supporters packing the courthouse made covering the trial a bizarre experience.</li><li>In June 2022, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison after he was convicted of sex-trafficking.</li><li> </li></ul>For journalists, the <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-jury-deliberations-sex-crimes-case-2021-9">R. Kelly trial</a> was hard to watch.We weren't physically permitted in the courtroom where the trial was taking place because of<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/insider/court-reporting-pandemic-covid.html"> coronavirus restrictions,</a> so there was a strange sense of alienation as we observed <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-trial-prosecutors-rest-case-sexual-abuse-employee-testimony-2021-9">witness after witness testify about horrific sexual abuse</a> via video feed from a chamber two floors above.The TV screens in the overflow room where we were stationed each day were blurry. We were forced to squint as accusers relived the lowest moments of their lives so that 12 jurors could decide whether the R&amp;B legend was guilty of a long list of sex crimes.<a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-trial-defense-attorney-nicole-blank-becker-2021-9">Kelly's attorney, Nicole Blank Becker,</a> often sat to the singer's right and obscured his face. We could only see Kelly in a zoomed-in breakout box on the top left corner of the screen, as if he was a YouTube commentator. His face was slightly larger than a nickel.Kelly watched witnesses testify mostly in silence, sometimes furrowing his eyebrows when a witness accused him of sexual abuse, and sometimes bopping his head when an excerpt of one of his songs played.Witnesses themselves often appeared as little more than a blur on the video feed. One sketch artist resorted to using binoculars in the early days of the trial. Jane Rosenberg, the court illustrator for Reuters, sat in her place of honor in a front-row bench of the press public gallery every day, leaning forward and peering through her glasses to get every detail possible. She blurred the faces of some witnesses accusing Kelly of sexual misconduct, as their identities were shielded by the court.The court understandably did its best to protect the privacy of witnesses who say Kelly subjected them to humiliating treatment. But in doing so, it refused journalists access to some of the video and documents that jurors used to reach a verdict. While another breakout box on the video feed displayed evidence, most of the documents used fonts too small for us to see properly.And while jurors sat in the public gallery area of Judge Ann Donnelly's courtroom, we couldn't search their faces for clues about the verdict because they were completely off-screen.<h2>On a typical day, we took lots of handwritten notes and finished work from a nearby park</h2>An Insider reporter found herself crunched up on a park bench Wednesday outside the Brooklyn Federal Court Building, racing the setting sun to file <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-defense-rests-witnesses-never-saw-singer-abuse-anyone-2021-9">her story</a>. As she fought off mosquitoes that were landing on her arms and legs, R. Kelly supporters danced nearby to his music and chanted for his freedom. Those supporters cheered on Kelly's defense team as they exited the courthouse across the street.It was a surreal scene. But it's not every day that a <keyword id="6355064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="celebrity" source="Orion">celebrity</keyword> like R. Kelly is tried in a sexual abuse case.<div type="image" title="R. Kelly, reporters, brooklyn federal court." height="2674" width="4010" msid="86590557" hostid="261"></div>Knowing how high-profile the trial would be — and that Kelly fans were planning to fly in from around the country to support him — reporters showed up for court between 5 and 6 a.m. ET during <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-sex-crimes-trial-opening-statements-2021-8">the first week of the trial</a>. Tired reporters lined the sidewalk in Brooklyn Heights, many of them sitting on the ground, until US Marshals opened the doors of the court to media after 8:30 a.m. As the trial progressed, members of the press were able to trickle in closer to 9:30 a.m., which came as a relief. The two overflow rooms open to the press and the public had about 20 socially distant spots in each. Credentialed journalists were allowed to bring electronics into the building, but had to leave the overflow room and relocate to the media room on a different floor to use them.We took handwritten notes while witnesses testified on the stand for about seven hours a day. The audio feed in the overflow room wasn't always great, but we tried our best not to miss a good quote.On breaks — an hour for lunch and a 10-15 minute restroom break each in the morning and afternoon — we'd make a mad dash to the media room, where we left our phones and laptops, and transform those pages and pages of notes into <a href="https://www.insider.com/category/r-kelly">articles</a>.Lunch presented another obstacle because we weren't allowed to eat in the media room. Fortunately, the Brooklyn Federal Court Building has an outdoor balcony we could take advantage of on the rare days we were able to file our stories with time to spare.Then came the crunch at the end of each day in court. Federal marshals would lock up the media room shortly after the judge recessed for the day, giving reporters just enough time to grab their gear and rush to find a cafe, bar, or bench in a nearby park where they could file their stories on deadline.<h2>R. Kelly fans showed up every day and kept us on our toes</h2>The harrowing testimony in the case and the air conditioning that seemed to run at a 40-degree temperature created a chilled atmosphere in the overflow rooms. The US Marshals who oversaw the rooms for journalists and members of the public also did their best to preserve the calm.But it didn't take long for the calm to unravel.<div type="image" title="r kelly fan outside courthouse" height="1871" width="2495" msid="86590559" hostid="261"></div>Kelly's fans showed up every day. At first, they were placed in an overflow room apart from journalists, instead sharing a space with family members and friends of the witnesses testifying. They often arrived early and filled the room to its coronavirus-restricted capacity, to the point where people directly associated with witnesses were turned away.An Insider reporter watched as marshals turned away one person, who said she was the therapist of one of Kelly's accusers testifying in the trial, because the public gallery was already full.At one point, some of Kelly's fans were moved into the same room as journalists. The cause was unclear, but it seemed that some of Kelly's fans had gotten into a verbal altercation with an accuser's family member.Another R. Kelly fan was arrested outside the courthouse after another of the singer's supporters made a complaint about him.On a different occasion, reporters were made to "shelter-in-place" in the courtroom for about 15 minutes at the end of the day after a security incident. We're still not exactly sure what that security incident was.The overflow room grew increasingly rowdy as the trial went on. Some Kelly supporters cheered on defense attorney Deveraux Cannick as he grilled witnesses and heckled testimony from accusers. Outside the courthouse, as accusers and their lawyers left the building, some held up banners in the singer's defense and blasted his music.<h2>Time seemed to melt inside the courthouse</h2>It felt as though Judge Donnelly never — not once — started the trial on time. Ten-minute recesses turned into 25-minute recesses and 9:30 a.m. starts turned into 10 a.m. starts. Reporters would run, out of breath, back to the courtroom after filing a story, only to look at the TV screens and see that the lawyers weren't even in the courtroom yet.<div type="image" title="r kelly trial reporters watching testimony haven" height="2268" width="3024" msid="86590561" hostid="261"></div>Attorneys would often venture into sidebars for long debates about the admission of testimony, evidence, and the scope of the questions they were permitted to ask. We in the public gallery couldn't hear what they were talking about, and these sidebars were redacted from transcripts — when a court reporter was present at all. Cannick, Kelly's defense attorney, often needed five minutes to get his papers in order, punctuating his slut-shamey cross examinations with stretches of boredom.Deprived of their smartphones, reporters doodled in the overflow room. They compared drawings of pigs and dinosaurs. One journalist, who had sparkly gel pens and highlighters and a knack for drawing palm trees, made their dinosaurs in the style of Lisa Frank. Another reporter, on a dare, walked across the back of one of the room's long wooden benches as if it were a balancing beam. Time continued to sputter when prosecutors brought their final witness, Dawn Hughes, an expert in interpersonal violence who also testified at <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-is-nxivm-keith-raniere-explainer-2019-4">the NXIVM trial</a>. She explained in detail the ways that victims of abuse attach themselves to their abusers."They're always trying to separate the good things about them from the bad," Hughes said as Becker, a former sex crimes prosecutor herself, listened closely.Several times, Donnelly told Hughes to slow down. She was talking too fast and the court reporter, transcribing everything happening in the courtroom, just couldn't keep up.At one point in the trial, time actually stood still: The clock in the overflow room had broken.An Insider reporter, who's one of apparently few journalists to own a watch, was bombarded with questions. Eventually we figured out that it was the top of the hour when the big hand struck eight.<h2>A long-awaited verdict</h2>It took jurors about 10 hours to reach a verdict, <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-jury-deliberations-sex-crimes-case-2021-9">convicting Kelly on all nine counts</a>.When the <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> broke in September that a verdict had been reached, a very pregnant Insider reporter who'd just sat through two prenatal appointments in downtown Manhattan waddled at full speed — with a hospital band still fastened to her wrist — to a subway station.Upon arriving at the Brooklyn courthouse, she found the building surrounded by far more journalists than had been covering the trial from inside the overflow room. TV cameramen stood eagerly awaiting any action at the doors.<div type="image" title="R. Kelly verdict, Brooklyn" height="2274" width="3024" msid="86590562" hostid="261"></div>Dozens of journalists swarmed Kelly's defense team as they exited the building, making it impossible for them to move through a nearby park without stopping to share a few brief words about what they felt were inconsistencies in the government's case.Then celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who represents several of Kelly's accusers, gave a statement while the singer's supporters expressed their disappointment in the background. One bystander called the verdict racist, although most of the victims who testified in court were people of color.As the afternoon dragged on and most of the crowd outside the courthouse cleared the area, a small group of dedicated Kelly supporters remained. They embraced each other, blasted the singer's more melancholy songs from their radios, and bonded over the last time they saw him in concert. "I just can't believe it," said one woman who shared that she last saw Kelly perform live in Brooklyn, the same borough where a jury had just deemed him a sexual predator.On June 29, 2022, Kelly — whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly — was <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-sentenced-to-prison-sex-trafficking-scheme-conviction-2022-6">sentenced to 30 years in prison</a>.

We spent 7 weeks covering R. Kelly's sex crimes trial. Inside the courthouse, time seemed to melt and the singer's fans got rowdy.

Nicole Blank Becker, a former Michigan <keyword id="12153780" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sex-crimes" source="Orion">sex crimes</keyword> prosecutor who spent nearly two decades working with victims, remembers watching <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-forbade-girlfriends-to-watch-surviving-r-kelly-documentary-2021-8">"Surviving R. Kelly"</a> and being mortified by the deluge of sexual abuse allegations against the R&amp;B star. She watched the 2019 Lifetime documentary series while sitting next to her husband, and felt outraged when he remarked at one point, in disbelief, "This did not happen. This is bullshit.""I'm like, 'Shut up!'" Becker said. "This is my field! What are you talking about?"Now, Becker is one of Kelly's most public champions as the only woman on his defense team. She's often photographed in designer outfits, her long black hair slicked into a low ponytail, outside the <keyword id="12079580" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brooklyn" source="Orion">Brooklyn</keyword> federal court building. Though she has kept quiet in court in recent weeks, it was Becker who last month gave the defense's opening statement in the singer's sex-trafficking <keyword id="11899412" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="trial" source="Orion">trial</keyword>. And she's sat next to Kelly throughout the proceedings, whispering in his ear as witnesses testified. With that visibility comes criticism: <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2021/08/r-kelly-female-defense-lawyer-metoo.html">An essay in The Cut</a> accused Becker and <a href="https://www.insider.com/donna-rotunno-harvey-weinstein-lawyer-profile-feminism-2020-2">defenders of various Hollywood sex pests</a> of throwing women "under the bus in the service of terrible men." Becker laughed off the condemnation in a recent interview with Insider. "First of all, sometimes the victims are men," she said.She's right: Two men were among the 11 accusers who testified in court that Kelly sexually abused them, many of them when they were underage. Prosecutors have alleged that the singer, who's charged with racketeering and violating the anti-sex-trafficking law known as the Mann Act, masterminded a decades-long operation to target girls and women and recruit them for sex. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to the charges.The jury has heard a whirlwind of disturbing testimony about Kelly's treatment of women and staff over the past four weeks. In court, Becker has called the accusers "liars," characterized their relationships with Kelly as "beautiful," and suggested that the women who didn't like Kelly's behavior should have walked away.<div type="image" title="r. kelly trial nicole blank becker" height="1500" width="2000" msid="86454570" hostid="261"></div> <div type="image" title="r. kelly trial nicole blank becker" height="1333" width="1777" msid="86454572" hostid="261"></div> <div type="image" title="nicole blank becker r kelly trial" height="3024" width="4032" msid="86454573" hostid="261"></div>It's a seemingly inexplicable pivot for a veteran sex crimes prosecutor to defend a disgraced celebrity in one of the most high-profile federal trials of the year. But for Becker, and those who know her, it's a natural move for an ambitious lawyer. "Friends of ours, and friends of mine that know I'm friends with Nicole, ask me all the time, 'How does she represent someone like <keyword id="11899001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="r-kelly" source="Orion">R. Kelly</keyword>?'" one friend and former colleague, Dana Marcus, told Insider. "And my answer is always the same: her father's a defense lawyer. And so she has grown up knowing and understanding that even if someone is accused of something, it doesn't necessarily mean that the accuser's is the only story."Becker, who declined to discuss the details of Kelly's case, said her opinion on the singer has done a 180-degree flip since she first learned of the allegations against him. She got involved in the case just months after the Lifetime series aired, and she's counting on jurors to be as open-minded about Kelly as she was. "The more I learned and the more I dug in and did my research, which included a lot of different things, my entire thought process changed," she said. "The facts are what drew me in, and because I'm so big on being by the law - what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong - when I saw the injustice, I committed."<h2>The pivot</h2>Becker told Insider that doing defense work for alleged rapists and child molesters is certainly "not for everyone." The details of the cases are often gruesome or salacious, she said, and her clients can grow distraught to the point of being suicidal. But when she goes home to her twin children each night, she usually isn't thinking about the cases she handled earlier that day. Becker said she's always had an "insane ability" to compartmentalize, which was on display as she pivoted from laughing as she recalled her father's advice never to become a defense attorney to gravely discussing the weight of the charges her clients face. Becker said she became a defense attorney and launched her private practice in 2017, after spending years as the chief of Macomb County's sex crimes unit and child abuse unit. "I realized it was wonderful, but there was nowhere else for me to go. I was as high as I could go," she said. "I also recognized the other side."Becker said some of the warrants that crossed her desk in Macomb County over the years had made her question whether Michigan's laws were fair to the accused. There were too many times when, she said, her unit would investigate alleged victims' claims, only to discover they were untrue. The office commonly received cases involving young men accused of sexually abusing 12- or 13-year-old girls, Becker said. In her telling, many of the underage girls had created Tinder profiles, convincingly passed themselves off as adults, and began sexual relationships with unwitting men who were 18 or older. "They end up having a relationship and they end up having sex, and clearly that is not okay," Becker said. "If someone's misrepresenting themselves, which has happened so many times, the 18-year-old is still responsible. And this 18-year-old is going to be a sex offender for the rest of their lives."Becker said a misunderstood part of sex crimes defense work is the notion that she goes to trial each day with the goal of getting sex offenders acquitted of heinous crimes. Many of her clients are indeed guilty, she said, and have admitted it, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have a skilled lawyer to help them navigate what comes next."It's a question, unfortunately or fortunately, of minimizing damages with folks," she said. "What I'm most proud of is my ability to use my knowledge to get justice for my clients. And listen, 'justice' doesn't always mean 'get cases dismissed.' It may mean my client has got to at some point pay the price for [their] actions."<h2>A lackluster start at trial</h2>Becker's prosecutorial credentials would appear to be an advantage in defending a major star accused of a monstrous array of sexual abuses. But Kelly's is also her first federal trial after rebranding as a defense attorney focusing exclusively on sex crimes, and a former federal prosecutor who's been watching the case closely said a series of missteps in court may have damaged Becker's credibility with the jury.In her opening statement, Becker spoke for hours and appeared at times flustered and disoriented. In one possible Freudian slip, she told the jury to find her client guilty, though she corrected herself moments later.<div type="image" title="r. kelly trial nicole blank becker" height="1667" width="2500" msid="86454574" hostid="261"></div>Judge Ann Donnelly interrupted or sustained objections against Becker multiple times that day. Becker also repeated the words "ladies and gentlemen" over 100 times. "She was making mistake over mistake," said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, who has been following Kelly's trial. "It hasn't been a good start for her so far."Later, during Becker's cross-examinations - of which there have been few - she came across as far too accusatory toward witnesses, Rahmani said. When questioning one accuser early in the trial, <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kelly-accuser-describes-trying-to-get-sex-tapes-destroyed-2021-8">who said she had a six-month relationship with Kelly when she was just 17</a>, Becker repeatedly framed the allegations as the result of the accuser's own decisions, apparently faulting her for answering the singer's calls and consenting to sex.The accuser, identified only as "Stephanie," said she felt that Kelly had "put the fear of God" in her and she had no choice but to obey him."It was just a bad look," Rahmani said. "Sometimes as a prosecutor, you're used to being so aggressive that you don't realize that when you're on the defense side, and when you're talking about victims of sexual abuse, you've really got to tone it down a bit. That's the type of thing that can really inflame a jury."Becker's colleague Deveraux Cannick handled the vast majority of cross-examination, while another attorney, Calvin Scholar, has been presenting witnesses in the singer's defense. A third defense lawyer, Tom Farinella, has mostly stayed quiet throughout the trial.The problem with treating Kelly's case like a typical sex crimes case is that the trial at its core is about whether the singer ran a criminal enterprise that recruited women for sex, according to Mike Leonard, who up until June was a member of Kelly's defense team.Leonard declined to comment on Becker's role on Kelly's defense team but spoke to Insider broadly about the challenges of defending a client against federal racketeering charges."It's not just the average, 'Let's get up and blame the victim and say they're lying,'" Leonard said. "You gotta do a lot more than that. You've got to approach it much more nuanced, because it's a RICO case and the jury instructions will be all about RICO," he added, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.Even before the jury was seated, Kelly's case took a chaotic detour. <a href="https://www.insider.com/r-kellys-legal-team-implodes-before-new-york-racketeering-trial-2021-6">His defense team suddenly imploded in June</a> when Leonard and another attorney, Steve Greenberg, filed a motion asking to withdraw from the case, citing infighting among Kelly's team. Greenberg told Donnelly the attorneys had jostled over who would get to perform big trial roles, such as opening and closing statements and witness cross-examinations.Kelly told the judge he fired Greenberg and Leonard. The shake-up left a four-person team to defend Kelly against charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life if he's convicted.Amid the controversy, Donnelly had also questioned Becker about potential conflicts of interest. The judge asked about her communications with two of Kelly's former girlfriends, Azriel Clary and Joycelyn Savage, as well as an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-r-kelly-attorney-conflicts-hearing-new-york-racketeering-20210617-vxjrorw2e5ffhbjpdc74zirnm4-story.html">investigation into a Kelly associate</a> who pleaded guilty to trying to bribe Clary after she began cooperating with prosecutors early last year.Becker <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-r-kelly-lawyer-conflict-of-interest-20210617-dlpkzwu6zfdmflnbxnazlztt24-story.html">denied in court</a> that she ever gave Clary and Savage legal advice. She told Donnelly that although she escorted the women to a 2019 court appearance, and later communicated with Savage through text, FaceTime, and in-person conversations, she had reminded both women that she was "Mr. Kelly's lawyer, not yours." Becker also denied any involvement in efforts to pay off Clary.<h2>Friends and enemies</h2>As a child, Becker would often watch television coverage of her father, Daniel Blank, a Michigan criminal defense attorney, when he handled high-profile cases.Blank told Insider he initially discouraged his daughter from leaving the prosecutor's office and entering private practice, believing her former job might be a more lasting, comfortable position. He said she's since proved him wrong."Being a criminal defense lawyer, especially in high-profile cases, is exceedingly strenuous," Blank said, noting that the Kelly case is his daughter's first high-publicity trial as a defense attorney. "I think she's handling it pretty well."<div type="image" title="r. kelly trial nicole blank becker" height="1731" width="2500" msid="86454575" hostid="261"></div>Several of Becker's former colleagues described her as meticulously prepared, tenacious, and talented at building relationships and trust. Though none said they were following <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> of Kelly's trial, or Becker's performance in the courtroom, they expressed confidence in her abilities."She was able to think on her feet. She wasn't rattled by the defense or the defendants," Marcus, Becker's former colleague who now works as a personal injury attorney, told Insider. "She came off as very confident and very bright. She was hard-working. She would outwork the opponents on every case."Marcus said she worked with Becker in the early years of their careers after overlapping at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. Becker was the one who initially taught Marcus how to try cases, she said, and she wasn't surprised when she learned her old friend would be representing Kelly because Becker always liked a challenge.Becker's experience as a sex crimes prosecutor is invaluable to clients when it comes to anticipating what prosecutors will do, said Michael Balian, another colleague who's been working on a child molestation case with her for three years."It gives you insight into not what the next move is, but what's going to happen in two or three moves and how to prepare for it," Balian said. "She knows what the deal is, how they do it, how they question, what evidence they have, where to get evidence, what evidence is missing."Balian added that Becker has an astonishing ability to get people talking, establish a rapport, and extract information from them that "people would normally never tell you.""I've been on calls with her where we'll third-party a person, and she'll start talking to them, and they'll start answering things you never thought you would even find out the answer to," he said.In person, Becker is gregarious and confident, with a spirited laugh and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. She's also made comical appearances on her husband's TikTok account (he has more than 3 million followers), <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@therealjbecker2/video/7004476010078932230?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1ebapp=v1">rolling her eyes in one video</a> as he croons, "You're beautiful, intelligent, tough, caring, and honest - that's the reason I call you my bitch … my bitchity bitch bitchy bitchity bitch bitch bitch."It's easy to see how Becker could win over someone like Kelly. But one of her former colleagues on the defense team was less charmed. "My mother once told me if I have nothing good to say, don't say anything. So I think it should be left at she's an incompetent, backstabbing, awful human being," Steve Greenberg, one of the attorneys who left the Brooklyn case in June, told Insider. Becker told Insider that Greenberg was simply disgruntled. "It's just so sad," Becker said. "His ego is clearly still hurt that much that he was fired. And somehow it's all my fault."Becker said that kind of vitriol comes with the territory of being a sex crimes defense lawyer. But she said she feels vindicated when she hears comments from clients like, "You know, Nicole, I never thought I'd be on a website looking for you.""I'm everyone's worst enemy because I'm representing people that are being accused of very heinous crimes, which I understand," she said. "But God forbid your child, or your friend is falsely accused of something like this. I'm going to be your best friend."Jacob Shamsian and Haven Orecchio-Egresitz contributed reporting.

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