NEW YORK — Accuser Jerhonda Johnson Pace returned to the witness stand Thursday on the second day of R. Kelly's sex-trafficking trial in New York, to begin answering cross-examination questions from defense lawyers such as: Was she "stalking" the R&B star she so admired when she was a teenager in 2009?
Later, Pace dissolved in tears on the stand as she read aloud from her journal about what happened the last time she saw Kelly at his Chicago-area home in 2010.
As she began reading, she started weeping and was handed tissues. “Rob called me a silly b----,” she read. She read that he slapped her a few times and he said, “It’s not going to be an open hand next time.”
Her testimony came on re-direct examination by prosecutors as Pace's time on the stand wound down Thursday.
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Jerhonda Johnson Pace cross-examination continues on Day 2 of sex-trafficking trial
Earlier, Deveraux Cannick, one of Kelly's defense lawyers, began cross-examining Pace by trying to show she mixed up dates about her first encounters with Kelly and that she deceived him by at first lying about herself and her age.
“You were in fact stalking him, right?” Cannick asked.
“That is not right,” she responded.
Cannick asked whether she remembered once telling someone she drove by Kelly's house "over 30 times"? She said she didn't. Did she remember having a video recorded of herself waiting outside of Kelly’s home? Yes, but she couldn't remember if she was alone. Did she remember how many times she waited outside of his home?
“I recall at least once,” she said.
Does she still hope to be in a relationship again with Kelly? Pace denied that.
A key element of Kelly's defense asserted by his lawyers is that the singer was victimized by "groupies" who sought him out at his concerts, then turned against him years later when public controversy about his alleged sexual abuse of women and girls exploded in the media.
“Would you categorize yourself as a groupie?” Cannick asked Pace. “No,” she replied.
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Pace had to ask R. Kelly's permission to use the bathroom
Under Cannick's questioning, Pace went into more detail about Kelly's alleged control impulses, such as having to ask for permission – and sometimes not being allowed – to use the bathroom when she was staying in Kelly’s house. She said sometimes Kelly responded quickly to her requests, and sometimes not. She said the longest she went without going to the bathroom was three days.
Pace was questioned about her description in earlier testimony of being slapped and choked by Kelly on her last day with him. Was there any swelling on her face, Cannick asked. Pace said she couldn’t recall. She and her mother didn't call police when she got home, she acknowledged.
What about the T-shirt she was wearing which she testified contained Kelly's DNA? Cannick asked if the shirt was tested for Pace’s DNA; Pace said it was not.
Pace, 28, who is pregnant and said she is due any day, was the first witness called to testify against Kelly, who the prosecution team has accused of leading "a criminal enterprise" of managers, bodyguards and other employees who helped him recruit women and underage girls for sex and pornography, and to cross state lines for that purpose.
Kelly has pleaded not guilty. If convicted on all the charges, he faces 10 years to life in prison.
Multiple photos of Pace as a teen, including one of her holding a news article about Kelly's 2008 trial on child pornography charges in Chicago (he was acquitted), were entered as evidence. Pace, curious and a big fan of Kelly's music, testified Wednesday she saw Kelly in person for the first time during that trial when she showed up outside the courthouse.
When the defense asked her if Kelly blew kisses at her outside of the court hearing in 2008, Pace said yes.
Cannick asked Pace about her memory for phone numbers, about her meetings with prosecutors before the trial began, and about how much money she's made from her public discussions of her time with Kelly, including a YouTube video she published in 2017, TV interviews, Instagram posts and a book.
Pace said she was compensated only for the book she published, making more than $25,000 but less than $100,000, she said. Were the details in the book “accurate and with no embellishment”? Yes, she replied.
Cannick questioned Pace about her birthday, the timeline between when she first met R. Kelly and when she first had sex with him. Cannick tried to raise doubts about her memory of how old she was at the time, suggesting she had claimed to have aged two years from 2008 to 2009. She said her April birthday had not yet occurred when she first met Kelly.
But she said, “I knew I had lied about my age” to Kelly during their first sexual encounter at his suburban Chicago home, which she testified about on the stand Wednesday.
Evidence of the phone number she used during her time with Kelly was introduced by the prosecution before they finished direct examination of Pace, and she was asked about the call log, including multiple calls between the two in January 2010. A text from Kelly to Pace on Feb. 3, 2010, shortly after 10 p.m. said, “Please call,” the call log showed.
For the second day of the trial, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly asked everyone to wear a mask if they’re not talking.
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Pace testified Wednesday about her complicated legal efforts to reach a settlement agreement with Kelly, which saw her hire three different law firms over three years. She described their first agreement as a payoff for her silence about her experiences with Kelly.
Under cross-examination, Cannick asked her to read the agreement and then asked if it said that anywhere. Pace said no. She said she never saw the first agreement before signing it, and the lawyers explained the document to her at the time.
Pace, who referred to Kelly as "Rob," said she had sex with the singer when she was 16, although she initially told him she was 19, which is older than the age of consent.
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Pace, who previously shared her story with Buzzfeed News, described going to a party at Kelly's house in suburban Chicago in May 2009. She testified that Kelly took her virginity. "I felt uncomfortable,” she said about the encounter.
When she told Kelly her real age, she testified, he said something along the lines of “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He asked me to continue to tell everyone I was 19 and act like I was 21," Pace testified, adding that Kelly told her he was going to "train" her sexually.
Pace testified that Kelly sometimes recorded their frequent sex sessions, shooting with a cellphone or a camera on a tripod, and that he would later show the recordings to her to point out where she could use “improvement.” She said she "ended up contracting herpes" while she was with Kelly in 2009.
Kelly is also accused in the two-year-old indictment of bribery, kidnapping, forced labor, producing child pornography and knowingly infecting some victims with a sexually transmitted disease.
On Wednesday, Pace recalled her last day at Kelly's home, saying he spit on her, slapped her and choked her until she passed out after he flew into a rage over her texting a friend. After oral sex, she said, she used her blue shirt to wipe semen from her face.
Donnelly ruled the T-shirt admissible as evidence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez, one of the three-member prosecution team, said they will present the jury with evidence of DNA allegedly belonging to Kelly on a T-shirt, in addition to birth certificates, texts, phone records, travel records, prescription records, search warrants and video/audio recordings of accusers.
Pace is one of the six accusers whose stories underlie the charges against Kelly. The other five women include the late singer Aaliyah (referred to as "Jane Doe #1"), who thought she was pregnant at age 15 by Kelly when he was 27, Melendez said.
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If you are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org/online and receive confidential support.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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