A courtroom artist’s sketch of R. Kelly on August 26th, during his trial.Source Elizabeth Williams / AP
For the past four weeks, during the racketeering and sex-trafficking trial of R. Kelly, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, prosecutors have tried to make the case that Kelly sexually abused women and girls from across the country, during a period that stretched from the mid-nineteen-nineties to his arrest in 2019. (He has pleaded not guilty and denied the charges against him.) During this same period, Kelly became a dominant voice in popular music, selling a hundred million records, and emerging as one of the most successful singers, songwriters, and producers in the history of R. & B. In 2002, he was indicted on child-pornography charges, but the case, brought by the state of Illinois, took six years to go to trial. It was narrowly focussed on a fourteen-year-old girl in one videotape, and neither the girl nor her parents testified. Kelly was subsequently acquitted. How is it that he is only now facing extensive criminal charges for his alleged crimes?
Part of the answer is that Kelly has silenced many of his accusers by paying them cash settlements in exchange for their signatures on nondisclosure agreements, a tactic used by wealthy and powerful predators such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. Many of those agreements were crafted by Susan E. Loggans, an attorney who is cited as “Lawyer No. 1” in a motion by the Eastern District of New York to admit...
Read Full Story: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-settlement-factory-that-kept-r-kellys-accusers-quiet
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