R Kelly defence due to start calling witnesses in ongoing trial today

completemusicupdate.com:

The defence in the current R Kelly trial in Chicago will start calling witnesses to the stand later today, after the prosecution rest their case on Tuesday.

Kelly’s lawyers haven’t confirmed whether or not he will testify, although it seems unlikely. However, his co-defendant and former business manager, Derrel McDavid, will definitely appear on the witness stand.The trial is the latest to put the spotlight on the many allegations of sexual abuse made against Kelly over the decades.

McDavid and another co-defendant – Milton ‘June’ Brown – are accused of helping Kelly cover up the musician’s sexual abuse of young teenagers during an earlier criminal investigation in the 2000s.The prosecution called 25 witnesses in total, including a number of Kelly’s alleged victims, women who say they were abused by the one time pop star, most of them when they were in their early teens.

On Tuesday jurors heard from one more of those victims, Nia, who – in 1996 – flew to Minneapolis at Kelly’s request when she was just fifteen.According to the Chicago Tribune, she recalled how she bought a single rose on the way to meet Kelly because “I wanted him to know how I felt about him”.