One last little chapter to the R Kelly child porn trail yesterday as various documents relating to the case, so far kept confidential, were unsealed.
Most sensationalist were the claims made by the prosecution's star witness Lisa Van Allen which never came up in court. Van Allen did tell the jury hearing the case against Kelly that she had had three threesomes with the R&B star and the underaged girl that the prosecution claimed appeared in the sex tape at the heart of the trial. She also claimed Kelly sometimes filmed her sexual encounters with him, and that his people had once paid to get back one such tape he had given her. In the papers relating to her testimony she says she was paid $100,000 by one of Kelly's associates to get possession of the video. She also claims in the papers that some of Kelly's people had been threatening towards her since she decided to speak to the police about her alleged threesomes, and that one had said she should be "murked", or murdered, for going to the police.
Of course Kelly's people had already put much effort into discrediting Van Allen as a witness during the trial, and given he was cleared of all charges they seemingly convinced the jury she was lying for personal gain, and was not to be trusted. With that in mind the singer's attorney Allan Mayer was dismissive of the new allegations in the court documents, telling reporters: "In her testimony in court, Lisa Van Allen revealed herself to be a thief and a liar. She wasn't believed in the courtroom, and there's no reason to believe her now".
The papers also revealed that the prosecution considered calling up to 200 people to the witness stand in a bid to prove their charges that Kelly had filmed himself having sex with a 13 year old girl. As previously reported, although the prosecution had what they claimed was that film, it was hard to identify the man and woman in it, and the singer's defence successfully argued neither Kelly nor the underage girl the prosecution reckoned appeared were actually in the tape.
In the end the prosecution only called 34 people to testify. Among the original list of potential witnesses were Kelly himself and his wife. Some jury members said that they thought the fact prosecutors did not question Kelly nor the alleged victim during the trial weakened their case somewhat.
Also in the papers was confirmation that the prosecution looked at bank statements for Kelly, the alleged victim and her parents, presumably to see if any money had changed hands to buy the latter's silence or, rather, their denial that the alleged victim was in the tape. The fact no such evidence was presented in court presumably means no such bung could be found.