Former R Kelly manager’s testimony dominates in last phase of the musician’s latest sexual abuse trial

completemusicupdate.com:

The ongoing R Kelly trial was dominated last week by the testimony of the star’s former business manager Derrel McDavid, who is a co-defendant in the case.

He is accused of helping Kelly cover up the star’s sexual abuse of minors in the 2000s, but – he repeatedly insisted on the witness stand last week – at the time he genuinely believed that all of the musician’s various accusers were lying.For that claim to be credible, McDavid needed to convince jurors that he had never closely scrutinised the various sex tapes involving Kelly that were leaked and then retrieved during the 2000s, including the one that was at the centre of the musician’s 2008 trial.

That video allegedly shows Kelly sexually abusing his then fourteen year old goddaughter, referred to as Jane, who declined to testify in 2008 but has been key witness in this trial.He also needed to be absent from some key meetings that took place in the 2000s, not least when Kelly met with Jane’s parents to discuss that tape which showed him sexually abusing their daughter.

According to Jane, Kelly confessed to the abuse during that meeting and apologised to her parents. However, she couldn’t remember if McDavid was there, and he insisted last week that he’d been waiting in a car outside.After that meeting, McDavid reminded the court, Jane and her parents denied that it was her in the leaked video.