Entertainment> Celebrities

Conflicting pictures emerge of alleged R. Kelly victim

(Agencies)
2008-06-10 16:01

Prosecutors say she was as young as 13 when the tape was made. Now 23, the woman has been identified at the trial, but The Associated Press does not name suspected victims of child pornography in most cases. She has not spoken publicly about the case.

Photographs of her when she was about 13 show a short, smiling, cherub-faced girl. In pictures shown to jurors, she's in uniform after basketball games, her arms around other players. Prosecutors also played a music video featuring the girl and three other teens in a R&B-tinged musical group that toured Europe several times in the '90s.

No one questions that Kelly and the alleged victim knew each other.

Singer Stephanie "Sparkle" Edwards, best known for the 1998 duet "Be Careful" with Kelly and is a relative of the alleged victim, introduced her to Kelly at a music studio when the girl was around 13 and Kelly was around 30, Edwards testified.

"He liked her spirit," a teary-eyed Edwards told jurors. "She was a very jolly person." The girl was fond of Kelly "as a father figure," recalled Edwards, adding she didn't suspect a sexual relationship until news broke years later about the tape.

Sometime after meeting Kelly, the alleged victim began telling her friends and acquaintances he was her godfather, her childhood friend Simha Jamison testified. Jamison, now a 24-year-old hair stylist, also told jurors that Kelly frequently gave her friend cash gifts and the two teens would go on shopping sprees with the money.