R. Kelly pleaded innocent to child pornography charges in a case where he allegedly taped himself having sex with a minor.
My question is, why wasn’t he charged with statutory rape?
Do parents have to press charges for statutory rape, or is that a state function (like murder, where the state will charge the culprit regardless of the victim’s family’s wishes)? What about endangering the welfare of a minor (which, I’m fairly sure are up to the state and not the parents)? Why are the only charges brought against him the child porn charges?
to prove rape, they’d have to positively identify him in the tape. For child porn, they have to establish that the person depicted is underaged (not that I know how they plan to do that w/o identifying her, but… )
W/R/T the OP question on prosecution, ordinarily, the state’s vested interest in prosecuting any felony or misdemeanor trumps the parents’ views, regardless of what they may be. Of course, if the parents declined to inform the authorities of an instance of statutory rape (e.g., if their running-wild 15-year-old seduced the 18-year-old neighbor boy and they have no interest in pressing charges), that of course becomes moot.
The particular agenda of the prosecutor’s office may have a great deal to do with what gets followed up on and what is left alone unless an issue is made of it.
I haven’t seen anything to confirm this, but my WAG is that perhaps child porn charges carry a worse penalty than statutory rape. I thought the same thing when this was first announced, but never heard an explanation for the charges.
Oh, and now that I hit submit, I realize I didn’t address part of the OP - I haven’t the faintest idea why only that charge was the only one being prosecuted, instead of a list of charges. The incident occurred in 1997, so another WAG would be statute of limitations issues.
(720 ILCS 5/12-16) Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse (which included statutory rape in section (d)) is a class 2 felony.
Plus, creating a single tape exposes you to only one statutory rape charge. If they use the child porn law, they can say you produced it, directed it, and intended to distribute it. And somehow that turns into 21(!) counts, which is a nice big stick for the prosecutors.
Thank you, everyone. I was kind of wondering why he was only being charged with one and not the other. I knew I could count on my friends at the SDMB to provide the SD!
I’ve read a couple of places (and it’s alluded to in the article you linked) that the girl and her parents are not cooperating with the police and prosecutors so it would be difficult to prosecute him for statutory rape.
That leaves them with child pornography, but they still have problems with that. They have to prove the female is underage and that it’s R. Kelly in the video (he is denying he is the man in the video.) This video wasn’t seized from R. Kelly, it was given to the police by a newspaper that received the tape from a third party. So even if the prosecutors prove the female is a child for purposes of the child pornography statute, they have to prove it’s R. Kelly in the tape to prove that he possessed the pornography at some point. One of R. Kelly’s defenses is that he is not the man in the video.
It could also be that the prosecution is holding back the other (the rape) case thinking that it can: a.) be used as a bargaining chip for Kelly to cop a plea. b.) have such weaknesses (i.e. that she is a prostitute) that its loss could influence the other trial. c.) brought up at a later time if the original case is lost and this second case can be handled differently.
R. Kelly doesn’t have much integrity in this area. Didn’t he falsify paperwork or some similar deception in order to illegally marry the late singer Aaliya when she was only about 16 and he was in his late 20’s? This guy has a thing for underage girls.
Well, let’s see- a guy is who a fairly successful R&B singer, and can presumably pull just about anyone he wants, tends toward very young, impressionable girls with presumably little real-world experience… Yeah, that’s yucky to me. Sounds like he has control issues at the very least.
An adult who wants to marry a 15 year old? I sure wouldn’t. Teenagers are a pain in the ass, especially girls. There are several reasons one might want to, though- from sexual to exploitive to business to whatever.
