DOCUMENT: Crime

R. Kelly's Digital Defense

View Document

R. Kelly's Digital Defense

EWWW: Prison food hits a new low

DECEMBER 2--Alleged pedophile R. Kelly is one inventive guy. The 36-year-old R&B singer is under indictment on child porn charges in Florida (where he allegedly possessed illicit still images) and Illinois (where he supposedly filmed himself with a young girl). When he was nabbed earlier this year in Miami, Kelly told cops, according to the below police report, that "former managers" might have been trying to set him up, "taking pictures of people that look like me" cavorting with the underaged. Kelly has now extended that defense, as it were, to his Cook County case, according to a motion filed yesterday. While simultaneously questioning whether his video co-star was a minor, Kelly notes that he might mount a "computer morphing" defense. The performer, it seems, may argue that some unknown conspirators digitally dropped him into the raunchy video (or, perhaps, replaced his of-age consort with a computer-generated partner based on an actual minor girl). This trial should be a hoot--especially when Kelly's legal team calls George Lucas as its first defense witness. Call it the Industrial Light & Magic defense. (6 pages)