R. Kelly sex abuse survivor who testified in his first trial speaks ‘Finally, I felt believed’
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Lisa VanAllen, an R. Kelly sexual abuse survivor who testified against him during a child pornography case in which he was acquitted in 2008, has now gone from not being believed in 2008 to feeling like she’s vindicated.
—Family of R. Kelly’s girlfriend afraid to appear in court, allege threats from singer’s team—
“I finally allowed myself to feel vindicated,” she writes in a New York Times op-ed piece. “All of the victims were echoing one another. I was no longer alone on a deserted island. Finally, I felt believed,” she said.
When Kelly faced 14 counts of child pornography relating to an alleged sex tape involving a 14-year-old girl, VanAllen took the stand to give her testimony as the prosecution’s main witness. She met the singer when she was 17 and she says he talked her into having sex with a 14-year-old girl she thought was closer to her age.
Testifying, she said was difficult to do at that time.
“Taking the stand was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. I was barraged with questions for three hours, so much so I almost forgot who was on trial. I was belittled and embarrassed. I was dragged for bad things I had done in my past. I was called a “streetwalker.” They wanted me to feel like trash.”
“God will send to you in the form of an angel, the devil!” someone on the defense side said to the mostly white, mostly male jury.
She continues, “Neither when I was a broken teenager susceptible to a wily predator, nor when I was a young woman who found the courage to tell the truth to a jury, could I have known this season of vindication would come,” she writes in The Times. “Not for a young, struggling, black girl victim like me.”
Given that she felt vilified in 2008, she said the response to the documentary was vindication.
“I didn’t think the response would be this big. I never imagined that after telling my truth — again — my life would be filled with so much love and support.”
“I think the survivors spoke out because we knew we have to talk about painful things like sexual abuse and incest in black America. Over time, I’ve come to believe that it is not a betrayal to tell the truth about our abusers, even if they are black men.
“The documentary broke a viewing record for Lifetime. Millions of people watched. Rob was exposed as the abuser that he is. And it seems the world is now on my side and the side of every girl or woman who has been abused by Rob, or, by extension, any powerful man.”
VanAllen is writing a forthcoming book about her experience, Surviving the Pied Piper of R&B.
She concludes, “This will not end the way it did before. It cannot.”
In the newest twist in Kelly’s convoluted sexual abuse case, attorney Michael Avenatti is reportedly turning over a 55-minute sex tape that has video of a 14-year-old girl . This tape is said to have been filmed around 2000, TMZ reports.
Last week, Kelly was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of minors, according to documents provided to TheGrio Friday afternoon.
—R. Kelly broke? R&B hitmaker doesn’t have cash to post $100K bail—
Nine of the ten counts against Kelly, 52, involve alleged victims who at least age 13 but no older than 17 years old the 36-pages indictment says. In the indictment there are four alleged victims. One is linked to three different counts. The incidents occurred in separate occasions between 1998 and 2010. In the State of Illinois, the statute of limitations on sexual abuse against minors can extend as long as 20 years.
