Atlanta, GA 5/8/2008 1:42:34 AM
News / Music

R. Kelly Begins Child Pornography Trial Wednesday

R. Kelly begins his child pornography trial on Wednesday, six years after delays have prolonged the court date.

Kelly will be placed on trial at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. Jury selection for the case will begin Friday, May 16.

The charges on Kelly were prompted by a videotape allegedly showing Kelly having sex with a girl as young as 13. However, the alleged victim, now 23, says it was not her.

Kelly, 41, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors claim the videotape was made sometime between Jan. 1, 1998 and Nov. 1 2000, and that the girl was born in September 1984.

Kelly, whose first name is Robert, was indicted on pornography charges in June 2002, after the tape surfaced and was sold illegally on street corners and the Internet. The video was anonymously sent to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Kelly has settled three lawsuits accusing him of having sex with underage girls, filed in 1997, 2001 and 2002. In the third suit, the woman claimed that she began having sex with Kelly when she was 16, and that he forced her to have an abortion.

In 2003, Kelly was arrested in Florida on child pornography charges after investigators said they found photos of him having sex with a girl. Charges were dropped after a judge ruled detectives illegally seized the photographs from a digital camera in his home.

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