R. Kelly's Illegal Marriage To Aaliyah Will Be Evidence In Trial

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Prosecutors will be allowed to present evidence related to R, Kelly’s marriage to a then underaged Aaliyah during his federal sex-trafficking case in New York that begins next week. According to USA Today, during the last pre-trial hearing on August 3, it was ruled that evidence showed Kelly had sexual contact with Aaliyah when she was a teenager could be heard by a jury.

In 1994, the disgraced Chicago crooner secretly married Aaliyah when she was 15-years-old. It is alleged that someone from Kelly’s entourage bribed a government official in order to obtain a fake ID for her saying that she was 18-years-old. Prosecutors are claiming that Aaliyah was pregnant by Kelly, so he planned the marriage so that he could be protected from criminal charges because a wife cannot testify against her husband. In the upcoming trial, Aaliyah is referred to as Jane Doe #1.

During the hearing, Kelly’s defense attorney also didn’t deny Kelly’s relationship with the late singer.

The New York Daily News reported that U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly asked Kelly’s attorney Thomas Farinella, “Are you going to deny that there was sexual contact with Jane Doe 1? They were married.” Farinella replied, “No.”

Kelly’s trial will begin on August 9, in Brooklyn, New York. During his trial, he is facing convictions on charges that he transported underaged girls across state lines in order to engage in sexual activity and make child pornography with the help a “criminal enterprise” he was managing. Federal prosecutors are also pushing to bring up sex crimes that Kelly llegedly committed with over a dozen people that he has not been charged with, including claims that he also had sexual relationships with underaged boys in Chicago. In court documents, the prosecutors claimed that the alleged crimes are “directly relevant to and inextricably intertwined with the evidence of the charged crimes.”