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R. Kelly’s Defense Casts Accusers as Liars and Fame-Seekers

In his closing argument, a lawyer for Mr. Kelly compared the case to the struggle for civil rights and urged jurors to “courageously” acquit the singer.

R. Kelly’s trial in New York is nearing its end.Credit...Amr Alfiky/Associated Press

The case against R. Kelly, the multiplatinum R&B artist, is not about a series of accusations against a single man, one of the singer’s defense lawyers said at the start of his closing arguments in Mr. Kelly’s racketeering trial in New York.

Rather, the lawyer, Deveraux Cannick said, it revolves around the historical balance between liberty and injustice in the United States and the decisions that everyday people make to shift the scale to either side.

Mr. Kelly’s six-week federal trial in Brooklyn has been filled with disturbing and graphic testimony, with witnesses describing physical and sexual abuse by a man who was once one of the biggest stars in R&B music. But as the trial neared its end on Thursday, Mr. Cannick waxed philosophical.

“Our Constitution is most sacred,” Mr. Cannick said. “However, without people of good will, of a sense of fairness and courage, our Constitution would be nothing but hollow words.”

And invoking Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. he argued that if jurors acquitted Mr. Kelly, they would be demonstrating the sort of courage that defined the civil rights movement.

The high-flown rhetoric marked an unlikely cap to the long-awaited trial at Federal District Court in Brooklyn, during which 11 women and men took the stand to accuse the entertainer of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Jurors are expected to begin deliberations on Friday.

The singer was propelled to immense fame decades ago through R&B hits like “I Believe I Can Fly.” But he was trailed closely by dozens of accusations of sexual abuse for much of his career and faces nine counts in New York including a sweeping racketeering charge. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

His defense team’s closing arguments, which spanned more than two hours, depicted Mr. Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, as a generous and caring partner who loved the women around him “as a family” and treated them “like gold,” but whose loyalty was not reciprocated.

Mr. Cannick argued that the government’s case — which revolves around allegations related to six women — was flimsy and built on a bed of fabrications. He contended that while Mr. Kelly’s accusers appeared to be sympathetic, their stories could not be trusted. He described one witness as “a super-stalker,” “a super-hustler,” and “a groupie extraordinaire.”

He urged jurors to question why the testimony of Mr. Kelly’s accusers sometimes differed from their prior interviews with the government. And he argued that their lengthy preparation before they took the stand, which he said went as long as 50 or 60 hours at times, demonstrated that their accounts could not have been truthful.

“You really don’t have to practice the truth,” he told jurors. “The truth will ring out and endure forever — if it’s the truth.”

He added: “Where’s the fairness to Robert? Where’s the integrity in the system?” as he suggested that federal prosecutors knowingly elicited lies from witnesses.

The trial is a significant milestone in the Me Too movement: It is the first high-profile trial in which a powerful man’s accusers are largely Black women. Over six weeks, 50 witnesses took the stand, most of whom were called by prosecutors in their case that depicts Mr. Kelly as the ringleader of a criminal scheme to recruit women and girls for sex.

But Mr. Cannick maintained that Mr. Kelly’s behavior was not out of the ordinary.

The singer was an international superstar who lived out that lifestyle and enjoyed his sex life, the defense lawyer said. “So he became a sex symbol, he became a playboy. Where’s the crime in that?” he asked jurors. “Some people just like kinky sex — not a crime.”

Many of Mr. Kelly’s accusers testified that the singer forced them to abide by a harsh set of restrictions with the penalty of violent beatings or other punishment when they broke his commands.

Those included a requirement to address him as “Daddy,” which Mr. Cannick framed as an ordinary greeting. “It’s almost a crime to call a man a ‘Daddy.’ I guess people can’t do that anymore,” he said.

And while Mr. Kelly is charged with inducing women and girls to travel across state lines for the purpose of committing sex crimes, Mr. Cannick said the accusations were absurd. “They are in relationships,” he said. “This is just like you taking your girlfriend, your wife, your husband on business.”

He offered jurors a simple message to consider during their deliberations: “They might not be the couple, the type of relationship that you endorse. But they all bought into it and they’re all consenting adults,” he said.

But Nadia Shihata, an assistant U.S. attorney, suggested in her rebuttal, which will continue on Friday, that some of Mr. Cannick’s arguments were out of touch, including that the women around Mr. Kelly had dressed scantily when they met or visited him.

“It’s as if we took a time machine and went back to a courthouse in the 1950s,” she told jurors. “What they’re basically insinuating is that all of these women and girls were asking for it and they deserved what they got.”

Mr. Cannick and the singer’s other three lawyers have faced a steep challenge through the trial, working against the government’s expansive case. In her own summation, Elizabeth Geddes, an assistant U.S. attorney, meticulously explained the charges against Mr. Kelly over more than six hours — and why, she said, jurors should find him guilty of all of them.

Over two days, the federal prosecutor painted a dark image of a predator who preyed on women, girls and boys and trapped them in an abyss of domination and power. Ms. Geddes said that system featured the indoctrination of underage women to his strict rules; physical attacks and abuse; threats of long-term confinement; and isolation from friends and family to deplete their “strength to say no.”

As her arguments ended, Ms. Geddes told the seven men and five women of the jury that they could offer his accusers justice that had escaped them for decades.

“It is time to hold the defendant responsible for the pain he inflicted on each of his victims: Aaliyah, Stephanie, Sonja, Jerhonda, Jane and Faith,” she said. “It is now time for the defendant to pay for his crimes. Convict him.”

Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Emily Palmer contributed reporting.

Troy Closson is a reporter on the Metro desk covering law enforcement and criminal justice. More about Troy Closson

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Kelly’s Lawyer Compares Case to Civil Rights Struggle. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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