Celebrity Mound

R. Kelly has won a $3.4 million award against his former tour promoter and is asking a Los Angeles judge to help him collect.

R. Kelly Touring, which represents the singer, filed court documents on Monday seeking a judge’s confirmation of the award an arbitrator granted against Georgia-based Rowe Entertainment last month.

Kelly’s company claimed that Rowe Entertainment and owner Leonard Rowe failed to pay him in full for shows scheduled for late last year and early 2008. An arbitrator agreed with Kelly’s claims. Documents show Rowe disputed the arbitration, but did not offer any defense during a recent hearing.

An after-hours phone message left for Rowe’s attorney in Atlanta was not returned Monday.

Kelly won three Grammys in 1997 for the song “I Believe I Can Fly,” but is known for his sexually charged music. He was acquitted earlier this year of child pornography charges and is scheduled to release a new album before year’s end.

Singer Ne-Yo recently won a $700,000 judgment against Rowe after he sued because he was dropped from Kelly’s tour after only two shows.

BOMB SHELL | Videotaped trysts with an underage girl, sex on a basketball court, a duffel bag of homemade porn and a stolen Rolex. Lisa Van Allen says it was all a part of her life with with R. Kelly.

R&B superstar R. Kelly carried a duffel bag filled with homemade sex videotapes wherever he went, a woman testified Monday.

While making one such tape, Kelly cut off the filming when the woman — Lisa Van Allen — started crying during three-way sex with an underage girl, Van Allen testified.

“He got upset and said he couldn’t watch that. He couldn’t do anything with that, with me crying. He stopped the camera,” Van Allen said.

The tapes Kelly liked went with him to his recording studio, to his favorite basketball gym — Hoops on the near West Side — and to video shoots, she said.

“Wherever he was at, the [duffel] bag would follow,” Van Allen said.

Van Allen’s testimony — covering her relationship with Kelly and how she ultimately became a witness against him — came under fierce attack by the defense, which contended she wanted money from Kelly. After Van Allen spent most of the day on the stand, the prosecution rested.

In one bombshell accusation, Van Allen claimed Kelly’s business manager, Derrel McDavid, paid her and another man $20,000 each for the return of a sex tape.

Kelly, 41, is charged with child pornography for allegedly videotaping himself, on another occasion, having sex with an underage girl. Van Allen told jurors she had three threesomes with Kelly and the girl.

Van Allen identified the girl in the videotape at issue in the case, saying she looked “just exactly how I remember her” — even remembering her breasts.

She identified Kelly by “his bald head, his hands, his genitals, his back — everything.”

Van Allen — now 27 and pregnant with her second child — was given immunity to testify. She told jurors she met Kelly at a video shoot near Atlanta when she was 17. Kelly’s cousin called her to the singer’s trailer.

“We talked for a while, and we ended up having intercourse,” Van Allen said of Kelly.

From early 1998 to 2001, Van Allen had a relationship with Kelly, visiting him in Chicago, staying in hotels and at his studio, touring with him, and appearing in two of his videos, she testified.

The first threesome with the underage girl happened in 1998 in Kelly’s house in the 1000 block of West George, according to Van Allen — in the same “log cabin room” where prosecutors allege the videotape at issue in the case was filmed.

Van Allen said Kelly told her the girl was 16, though prosecutors contend she was as young as 13. Van Allen testified that Kelly videotaped the threesome — a tape separate from the one at the heart of the current case.

A year later, the trio had sex again — this time on Kelly’s indoor basketball court, she testified.

Van Allen wept as she described how Kelly put a futon mattress on the court. It was during that three-way encounter that she cried, Van Allen said, prompting Kelly to stop the videotaping.

The three had sex again in 2000 inside Kelly’s trailer at a video shoot in Chicago, Van Allen said.

In March 2007, Kelly flew Van Allen and her fiance, Yul Brown, to Chicago in hopes of retrieving the videotape of the first threesome, Van Allen testified. Kelly offered her $250,000 for the tape, she said.

But Van Allen had given the tape to a man named Keith Murrell, who lived in Kansas City, she said. So Kelly’s “people” arranged a meeting in Chicago. At that meeting, McDavid — Kelly’s business manager — gave Van Allen and Murrell $20,000 each for the tape, she said.

McDavid “told us if [Murrell] brought back the original, he would give us the remainder” of the $250,000, Van Allen said.

“Lisa Van Allen is an admitted thief and a liar, who wouldn’t know the truth if she tripped over it. If there was any crime committed here, it was her attempt to extort money from R. Kelly,” McDavid, 47, said through a spokesman.

Cross-examining Van Allen, defense lawyer Sam Adam Sr. pointed out both her ex-boyfriend and current fiance had been in trouble with the law. Damon Pryor, the father of Van Allen’s 5-year-old daughter, was convicted of bank fraud. Brown also has a federal fraud conviction, Adam said.

“Do you have something that they have to have a federal conviction for fraud before you’re interested in them?” Adam asked.

Adam brought up Pryor’s allegations that Van Allen had concocted a “scheme” to get money from Kelly with a bogus sex tape — allegations she denied. Judge Vincent Gaughan ruled Monday that Pryor can testify for the defense.

Van Allen admitted, on direct examination, that she stole a Rolex watch from Kelly after a tryst at a Swissotel in Georgia in 2001. Adam told her the watch was worth $20,000 and got her to admit she had not told prosecutors about the incident until Monday.

Adam said Van Allen did not contact Cook County prosecutors until earlier this year, right after Georgia authorities charged Brown with illegally having an AK-47 and drugs. Brown got probation.

“You and Yul Brown cooked up this scheme,” Adam said.

“That’s not true,” Van Allen said.

Adam asserted Brown asked for money in exchange for Van Allen changing her story, a charge Van Allen denied.

Also Monday, Gaughan ordered Sun-Times pop music critic Jim Derogatis to appear in court today. Derogatis received the sex tape anonymously in 2002 and turned it over to authorities.

(source)

Attorneys in R&B superstar R. Kelly’s child pornography trial are expected to begin questioning 150 potential jurors on Monday and it’s unlikely any of his fans will be chosen to hear the allegations against one of urban music’s biggest stars.

The 41-year-old hitmaker, known for sexually charged hits like “Bump N’ Grind,” has pleaded not guilty to charges that he videotaped himself having sex with a girl as young as 13.

The selection of the 16 jurors, four of them alternates, will be key for both prosecutors and defense attorneys, said Steve Cron, a defense lawyer from Santa Monica, Calif., who has practiced for 35 years.

“In a case where a celebrity has good and bad public images, it’s critical,” said Cron, who has no link to the Kelly case.

It’s unlikely the defense could pack the jury with R. Kelly fans, because “the prosecution should be successful in excluding them,” he said.

Prosecutors may seek well-educated jurors, which could help cause if they call technical experts to speak about the videotape, he said.

When the trial gets under way, prosecutors will face a daunting challenge: The girl believed to be on the videotape, who is now 23, says it wasn’t her. And Kelly’s lawyers – including prominent Chicago attorney Ed Genson – haven’t conceded it’s Kelly in the video.

Prosecutors say the videotape was made between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1 2000, and that the girl who appears in it was born in September 1984. Kelly was indicted on pornography charges June 5, 2002, after the tape surfaced.

If jurors find the Grammy-winning artist guilty, he could go to prison for up to 15 years.

On the first day of the trial on Friday, Cook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan addressed the potential jurors.

“As you know, this is a high-profile case,” he said, according to court transcripts. “And if you don’t know, God love you. You’re probably the only person on earth that doesn’t.”

The first session lasted about 30 minutes, and reporters were not allowed to attend.

Kelly, who usually sat poker-face at pretrial hearings, smiled and said hello when the judge introduced him to the potential jurors, according to Verna Sadock, a sketch artist who was in the courtroom.

As the judge read the 14-count indictment, some of the potential jurors looked uncomfortable as he went through some of the more graphic sections, Sadock said.

Kelly’s lawyers have argued that pretrial publicity has precluded the possibility of selecting an impartial jury.

Defense attorney Marc Martin cited a front-page story in Friday’s Chicago Sun-Times about a possible witness. Potential jurors, he said, could not have avoided seeing the article or hearing about it on radio or television.

But the judge denied a defense motion to postpone the trial, which had already been delayed for six years, suggesting that jury selection could weed out any tainted jurors.

Selecting a jury should take about a week, and the trial itself could take several weeks.

Despite defense arguments, Cron said it is possible to find fair and impartial jurors.

“They got a jury for the Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson trials,” said Cron. “They’ll find one for this trial too.”

Although Kelly won a Grammy in 1997 for the gospel-like song “I Believe I Can Fly,” his biggest hits are bawdy ballads like “Ignition” and his current single, “Hair Braider.” He is due to release a new album in July.

A woman is set to testify at R. Kelly’s upcoming child pornography trial that she had a three-way sexual encounter with Kelly and the allegedly underage girl shown in the video at the heart of the case.

The 41-year-old R&B superstar is accused of videotaping himself having sex with a girl estimated to be 13 or 14. He has pleaded not guilty. Jury selection is set to begin Friday.

As part of the case, prosecutors claim to have identified the girl in the videotape. This alleged victim is now in her 20s. Kelly’s lawyers plan to argue — and the alleged victim will reportedly testify — that she is not the girl in the tape.

But the prosecution’s new witness could undermine that defense, since she will identify the girl, sources with knowledge of the matter told the Chicago Sun-Times. In addition, the witness is expected to say the girl was underage at the time of their encounter.

“She was involved in a threesome with [the girl] and R. Kelly,” one source said.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers declined to comment, citing a gag order in the case.

The witness’ testimony was among the evidence discussed in secret hearings last month before Judge Vincent Gaughan. The judge, citing concerns about pretrial publicity, closed the hearings to the public and put multiple court filings under seal.

The Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press filed a legal challenge to unseal the proceedings and documents, as did WBEZ-FM (91.5). Those challenges are still pending.

At one of the closed hearings, Gaughan ruled in the prosecution’s favor and said testimony about the threesome would be admissible at trial, sources said.

In the past, Kelly has faced civil lawsuits from underage girls accusing the singer of inducing them to have sex with him and a second woman. The title track of his 2007 album “Double Up” refers to a man arranging a ménage a trois.

The Kelly case has been pending since June 2002, when the R&B star was indicted on multiple counts of child pornography. It has been delayed repeatedly, but lawyers and courthouse personnel expect it will finally begin May 9.

The indictment followed a more than three-year Chicago Police investigation. The Sun-Times reported on the investigation in a December 2000 story about Kelly’s pattern of pursuing underage girls for sex.

The big break in the case came in February 2002, when a videotape was sent anonymously to the Sun-Times. It shows a man alleged to be Kelly engaging in various sex acts — including urinating on the underage girl. The tape was turned over to the Chicago Police.

Cook County State’s Attorney Richard Devine impaneled a grand jury that heard dozens of witnesses identify Kelly and the teen on the tape and confirm that they had a sexual relationship.

The tape was authenticated by the FBI, which determined it could not have been a forgery.

Kelly, of Olympia Fields, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

(source)

The 40-year-old singer, who is in the middle of a 45-city tour, faces child pornography charges for allegedly videotaping sex acts with a young teenage girl. He has pleaded not guilty.

Kelly missed a hearing Wednesday in Chicago after his tour bus was stopped by Utah State Police, said Kelly’s attorney, Ed Genson.

Cook County prosecutors asked Judge Vincent Gaughan to issue a warrant for Kelly’s arrest, saying the court had been generous in allowing Kelly to embark on his tour.

“The very least he could do is be here for his appointed court date,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Shauna Boliker.

The judge entered the warrant, but put it on hold until Thursday morning, when he ordered Kelly to appear in court.

Genson told the judge his client tried his best to make it on time, but first snow, then Utah authorities, delayed the tour bus on its journey from a concert date in Sacramento, Calif., to Chicago.

Police pulled the bus over and discovered its log book didn’t document enough rest time for the driver. Police ordered the bus to stop for eight hours, Genson said.

Gaughan is expected to set a trial date in the case, which has been pending since 2002.

The singer won’t have to rush off to a concert after court. A Minneapolis show Thursday night has been canceled. The next scheduled tour date is Friday in Chicago, according to Kelly’s Web site.

(Courtesy of Sony BMG)

(Courtesy of Jive Records & Zamba Label Group)

NEW! “SAME GIRL” FEATURING USHER VIDEO PREMIERE

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1518071

ALSO – Tune in to BET TODAY every hour on the hour for the world premiere of the highly anticipated and much-talked about duet of Usher and R. Kelly in “Same Girl.” The video plays it all out for us with a little twist at the end that we don’t hear on the record…Tune in to BET today for the world premiere of “Same Girl.”

R. KELLY
DOUBLE UP in stores and online NOW
www.r-kelly.com
www.myspace.com/rkelly

R. KELLY SING-A-LONG CONTEST

Users step up to the mic to sing “I’m a Flirt”. Grand Prize winner’s track is posted on R. Kelly’s Myspace.com page and more!
Check out details and contestant entries here!

To me, rap and R&B are like two hands holding one another,” says R. Kelly. “Double Up is about 70% hip-hop, but, that being said, I’m always going to make songs for the ladies.”

(Brought to you by ThinkTank Marketing)

R. KELLY
DOUBLE UP in stores and online NOW
Order on iTunes [Explict Standard]
Order on iTunes [Edited Standard]
www.r-kelly.com
www.myspace.com/rkelly

NEW! R. KELLY SING-A-LONG CONTEST

Users step up to the mic to sing “I’m a Flirt”. Grand Prize winner’s track is posted on R. Kelly’s Myspace.com page and more!
Check out details and contestant entries here!

“Everything I did in the past, I’m about to double up on it,” says the windy city maestro. In other words, the listener will not be disappointed with the fierce production, superior lyricism and hyper collabos one has come to expect from a Kells project. Just in time for summer, with its whirlwind of backyard barbeques and beach parties, Double Up is filled with enough anthems to dominate the season.

(Brought to you by ThinkTank Marketing)