Ex-employee says R. Kelly lived in “Twilight Zone” that he managed
New York — R. Kelly lived in a “Twilight Zone” the place he known as all of the photographs, together with whether or not guests at his Chicago-area mansion may go away or order takeout meals, considered one of his former workers testified on Friday.
Anthony Navarro was known as as a authorities witness at Kelly’s sex-trafficking trial to explain the internal workings of the house the place the R&B singer had a recording studio and a relentless stream of feminine guests.
The testimony bolstered the federal government’s rivalry that Kelly managed all the things round him and created an atmosphere the place women and girls who entered the house confronted strict guidelines that gave them little alternative however to undergo the singer’s sexual whims.
Being on the mansion “was virtually just like the ‘Twilight Zone,'” Navarro mentioned. “It is only a unusual place.”
Navarro informed jurors that he by no means witnessed Kelly sexually abuse his victims as alleged on the trial that started earlier this week in federal court docket in Brooklyn. However there have been “women” who would keep for lengthy stretches and could not eat or depart with out Kelly’s permission. “There’s been occasions the place they needed to (go away) however could not as a result of they could not get a trip or we could not get ahold of Rob,” he mentioned.
Navarro, who was skilled as an audio engineer, spent a lot of his time doing menial chores for Kelly like driving guests to and from his house. “Primarily it was women who had been coming to the studio,” he mentioned.
It was the third day of testimony at a trial anticipated to final a number of weeks for a singer who grew to become well-known throughout a 30-year profession by hits like “I Consider I Can Fly,” a 1996 track that grew to become an inspirational anthem.
Kelly, 54, has denied the accusations and his attorneys have portrayed him as a sufferer of ladies who focused him after the emergence of the #MeToo motion introduced a brand new take a look at the connection between celebrities and their followers.
The ladies’s tales acquired huge publicity with the Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.” The sequence explored how an entourage of supporters protected Kelly and silenced his victims for many years, foreshadowing the federal racketeering conspiracy case that landed Kelly in jail in 2019.
