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Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.Chicago Sun-TimesDecember 21, 2000, THURSDAY, Late Sports Final Edition

HEADLINE:

Kelly accused of sex with teenage girls

BYLINE:

BY JIM DEROGATIS AND ABDON M. PALLASCH

BODY:

Chicago singer and songwriter R. Kelly used his position of fame and influence as a pop superstar to meet girls asyoung as 15 and have sex with them, according to court records and interviews.The author of "I Believe I Can Fly" met two of the girls on a return visit to Hyde Park's Kenwood Academy wherehe got his start, one of the girls said. The girls were singing in the choir.One of the girls sued the three-time Grammy award winner for $ 10 million in 1996, saying he started having sexwith her when he was 24 and she was 15.Kelly "engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with (her), including but not limited to engaging in group sexualintercourse with (her) and other minors," the suit alleged.In a more publicized case, Kelly married his 15-year-old protege, Aaliyah, in 1994 shortly after producing her debutalbum, "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number." She quickly ended the marriage once her family and the public found out.Born and raised on the South Side, Robert S. Kelly, who will turn 34 on Jan. 8, is the most successful soul or R&B performer from Chicago since the great Curtis Mayfield. He headlines tomorrow night before 22,000 fans at the UnitedCenter as part of WGCI's annual Christmas concert, which is sold out.Kelly has sold more than 20 million albums, his current release "TP2.com" sits at No. 15 on the Billboard chart,and he has scored seven Top 5 singles, including "I Believe I Can Fly," which was included on the soundtrack of the1996 film "Space Jam" at the request of the movie's star and Kelly's friend, Michael Jordan.Kelly has been honored for his philanthropic work on behalf of Chicago charities and children's organizations."Sex is not the most important thing in my life -- I get as much satisfaction from preaching to kids as anythingelse," Kelly told the African-American publication the Voice.But there is a split in Kelly's music between the anthemic "I Believe I Can Fly" and the down and dirty "Bump N'Grind," and between the spiritual "I Wish" and the self-explanatory "I Like the Crotch on You."That split apparently has been mirrored by the contrast between his public stance as a hero for young children andhis private behavior with young girls.Sources said Kelly continues to seek meetings with underage girls by having an assistant press tiny balled-up noteswith his phone number into the palms of their hands backstage at concerts or at video shoots.Illinois state statute prohibits adult men from having sex with girls under 17, but prosecutions must be broughtwithin three years of the act. Kelly never has been charged in connection with any of his relationships with minors, andthe statute of limitations is now past for several of these relationships.Chicago police twice have investigated allegations that Kelly was having sex with an underage female but droppedthe investigations because the girl would not cooperate.A spokeswoman for Kelly said she had no comment on the lawsuit or any of the charges of sex with minors.Kelly is hardly the first celebrity to be accused of taking advantage of underage girls. Gary Glitter, Rob Lowe, Elvis

Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roman Polanski, Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and even the legendary Errol Flynn all have beenwritten about in this paper and others for allegedly having trysts with minors.In 1994, Michael Jackson settled a lawsuit with the family of an underage boy with whom he allegedly had sexualcontact. In ongoing attempts to regain his career's pre-scandal peak, Jackson has collaborated with Kelly several times,including the 1995 single "You Are Not Alone."The Tiffany Hawkins lawsuitOn Christmas Eve, 1996, a Chicago woman named Tiffany Hawkins filed suit against Kelly and his record, publishing and management companies in Cook County Circuit Court charging that she suffered personal injuries andsevere emotional harm because she had sex with the singer and he encouraged her to participate in group sex with himand other underage girls.According to the lawsuit, Hawkins began having sex with Kelly in 1991, when she was 15, and the relationshipended in 1994, when she turned 18. Hawkins was seeking $ 10 million in damages, but sources said she accepted afraction of that amount -- $ 250,000 -- when the suit was settled a little more than a year later in January 1998.Hawkins did not respond to requests to comment for this article, but her mother said that the terms of the settlementforbid her from talking to the press. A spokeswoman for her attorney, Susan Loggans, also declined to comment, citing aconfidentiality agreement."I'm telling you as his spokesman that I have no comment about that, I have no knowledge of that and I'm justsaddened that that's the only thing you could call me about," said Kelly's publicist Regina Daniels. "That's mystatement."A second Chicago woman who was named in the lawsuit recently expanded on the charges. She said that she was prepared to testify about what she called Kelly's "sickness" -- his desire for underage females.The woman said that she had sex with Kelly on several occasions in 1991 when she was 16 and the singer was 24,and that she once had sex with him while he simultaneously fondled the 15-year-old Hawkins.The woman, who is now 25, said that she first met Kelly when she was a 14-year-old freshman at KenwoodAcademy in Hyde Park, singing in the choir under the direction of music teacher Lena McLin. Kelly has credited McLinas his first musical mentor and a "second mother." The singer attended Kenwood but never graduated from high school.McLin has since retired."He comes back all the time -- he considers me his mother and mentor," McLin agreed. In addition to visitingKenwood Academy, Kelly also visits the United Church of Hyde Park, where McLin directs the choir.Told of the allegation that the adult Kelly recruited freshman and sophomore girlfriends from her choir, McLin said,"I don't know what he did outside of school. But in the school, there was no hanky panky. If they were involved in that,the sad thing is, it takes two to tango."McLin admits she dislikes many of Kelly's more sexual songs."He has a very decent moral spirit inside that's dying to come out," she said. "It comes out in 'I Believe I Can Fly.' Itcomes out in the angel song he did with Celine Dion. It will eventually grow. It may be a little baby now, but it willeventually get real big."The woman from McLin's choir said she and Hawkins began hanging out with Kelly through all-night recordingsessions at the Chicago Recording Company, and they occasionally contributed backing vocals to his productions,including songs that he crafted for Aaliyah. The woman said she believed that Kelly would help her singing career if shegranted him sexual favors, and the superstar encouraged her to drop out of school in order to pursue a career in music.She said she has decided to speak out about the affair now because she believes Kelly continues to have similar relationships, to the possible detriment of the other girls involved."I just feel like it's going to come out in the light anyway," she said. "I'm not trying to (bring him down), becausereally, honestly, I think it has to be a sickness. Looking at the pictures of how me and Tiffany (Hawkins) were when wewere freshmen, we were ugly little girls compared to what he could have had, and so I just didn't understand why he didwhat he did."

According to Hawkins' lawsuit, Kelly had sex with underage girls in his apartments at 9 S. Wabash, 185 N. Harbor Dr. and other locations in Chicago. In response to questions from Hawkins' attorneys, Kelly admitted that he employedHawkins as a background vocalist and "periodically gave (her) small cash gifts and . . . approximately $ 1,400 inchecks," but he denied having any sexual contact with the girl.Kelly's labels, Jive Records Inc. and Zomba Recording Corp., sought to get out of the suit, saying that Kelly's"alleged tortious conduct against his live-in paramour in the privacy of their home has nothing to do with (Jive andZomba)."Hawkins' lawsuit also initially included charges of sexual harassment against Kelly, since he was in effect her employer. But Hawkins dropped those charges after Kelly's attorneys argued that such allegations first must be aired before the Illinois Human Rights Department. The charges never were heard in that forum.Hawkins' friend said that Kelly did not force himself on her sexually. "He treated us very well," she said. "(We got)anything we asked for, but we weren't going to ask for much -- a pair of Air Jordans or $ 100 was a lot of money to us."I still love R. Kelly's music; I don't hate him," she added. "He reminds me of a boyfriend who hurt you that youstill love. He hurt me by not helping me out and telling me to drop out of school. He told me and Tiffany both, 'If youwant to be serious about the music, you have to be at the studio and not at school, because school isn't going to makeyou a millionaire.' At 16, that's like a dream to us to work with R. Kelly, so we listened to him. . . . I think it's asickness."The story of the Hawkins lawsuit is a complicated one. According to legal papers on file with the Circuit Court,Hawkins' attorneys first presented Kelly with notice that they were about to file suit on Dec. 5, 1996.On Christmas Eve, the same day that Hawkins filed suit seeking $ 10 million in damages, Kelly sued Hawkins for $30,000 in punitive damages, charging that she had demanded "substantial sums of cash" and a recording contract or shewould "widely publicize the false allegations" that Kelly had fathered her child.In fact, Hawkins' lawsuit made no mention of a paternity claim. The documentation in Kelly's lawsuit amounted toa total of five pages, and the blackmail charges never were mentioned again in any of his legal filings.Kelly's count against Hawkins eventually was voluntarily dismissed. However, his charges against the girl were theonly charges that ever were publicized. Kelly's New York publicity firm, Dan Klores & Associates, helped Kelly air hisside of the story by placing items in the press about his lawsuit against Hawkins.On Dec. 26, 1996, the New York Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times both ran gossip column items mentioningKelly's lawsuit. "Many celebrities are constantly being harassed and sued, and more often than not, they decide tosettle," a Kelly spokesman working with Klores told the Daily News. "Kelly has decided, 'No way.' "Sources said that Kelly reconsidered that hard-line position and settled with Hawkins on Jan. 23, 1998, just four days after she gave a seven-hour deposition. The sources said that Kelly quickly ended the case at that point by payingHawkins a quarter of a million dollars."There was a complaint by Kelly, there was a complaint by her, it was settled, the settlement is confidential, I havenothing else to say about that case now or ever," said Kelly's lawyer, Gerald Margolis of the Los Angeles firm of ManattPhelps & Phillips.The Aaliyah marriageHawkins' relationship with Kelly apparently ended around the time the singer became intensely involved with hisyoung female protege Aaliyah, shortly before the release of her Kelly-produced debut, "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number."In 1994, Kelly grabbed headlines with reports that he had married the 15-year-old Aaliyah. But the artists never confirmed the stories, and spokesmen for Kelly disputed the age difference.The Chicago Sun-Times has found court documents that spell out for the first time exactly what happened.Kelly was introduced to the Brooklyn-born, Detroit-raised Aaliyah D. Haughton when she was 12 years old by her uncle, Barry Hankerson, a music-industry veteran who has managed stars such as Toni Braxton and Gladys Knight.Hankerson oversaw Kelly's rise to the top of the charts but split with the singer earlier this year.