- ( shouting ) - you can hear some megaphones in the background.
It's some r. Kelly supporters.
- ( shouting indistinctly ) - free r. Kelly!
- Free r. Kelly. - Are you guys part of a big group of supporters?
- The enterprise. - We call ourselves the enterprise.
All the women are criminals. They are liars.
I'm being bullied. Every day, I'm reliving the hell because of his fans.
- Not guilty! - Not guilty!
I've gotten threats. I mean, they've come after my children.
My oldest daughter gets cyber-bullied.
God summoned me and wanted my voice in this fight.
He should be acquitted of. Drop the charges because they lying.
He raped young black girls.
Get out! Shut the ( bleep ) up!
The prosecutor has fabricated her story
To change it up to fit their narrative.
Robert is still the ( bleep ) king of r&b.
Why do we have to go through online bullying...
It's about the money.
...Death threats, depression...
- We're not giving up. - ...Anxiety...
They have violated a lot of his rights.
...All for speaking about something horrific
That we went through, that we survived?
( theme music playing )
Azriel clary's testimony is just horrifying to read.
The little piece of me that wanted him to get some help,
- It just went out the window. - The fight continues.
Tim's daughter is still there.
When we walked into the courthouse,
I saw joycelyn's handler.
And I said, "don't you have my daughter?" and she said, "yes."
His entourage wanted these women's allegations to be snuffed.
He wanted to kill six people.
They've threatened to kill my daughter.
I can't even put my kids in school.
A lot of us were, like, shut down.
Ready to just go in there, tell my truth, and walk out.
We about to make him mad.
It was very sad to me to see so many black people,
Middle aged black people in the middle of a pandemic,
Who should be at home raising their children
Outside with sidewalk chalk mocking survivors.
The irony around protesting and drawing in chalk,
Like we do as children,
Protestors were using that same medium
While he is on trial
For sex-trafficking and raping minors
And black girls.
We do a lot of work in our culture
Of not holding the person
Who's committing these acts responsible.
We are willing to blame everyone else around them.
You have to do so much work to break the silence.
The longer we continue to protect the assailants
At the expense of victims,
We're just perpetuating this crisis
Without any end in sight.
Even people who don't know him personally have an affinity for him
Because his music has been the backdrop
Of some of these very significant moments for people.
They're protecting not only their memories
And their association with their music
But also this idea of protecting this black man who's being targeted,
Not that he may actually be someone who's harmful.
I couldn't believe in 2021 that anybody...
- Had sidewalk chalk. - ...Was still supporting this person.
- Right! - And would do it publicly.
Go down to the courthouse to be seen in the news publicly
Supporting someone who is a well documented serial abuser.
- I was shocked. - This is how much fan I am
Of mr. Robert sylvester kelly.
And you got this why?
For justice for r. Kelly, my support for him.
They've had some crazy supporters acting out,
So that's why I'm trying to look around and see what I see.
Do you see that girl at the door right there
- With that red hair? - Yeah.
That's joyce's handler.
You see she got her hand on her hip
Looking at me like, "who is that?"
Oh, my god.
That's the one jonjelyn told me was her handler.
I mean, she's there every day. That's crazy.
She keep looking at me.
Careful.
I am.
When you were on the stand, I was a nervous wreck
Because I was worried about you.
Walking into the courtroom and having to see this fool,
- You were on my mind heavy. - Yeah.
Thank you.
My name is faith,
And I was listed as jane doe number six
In the r. Kelly trial.
Here goes nothing.
Here goes the last of everything.
Once I made it down the escalator
Into the to the car with prosecutors,
I was like, "this is really happening.
I'm really dressed to go to trial."
I couldn't go to the trial
Because I was gonna be testifying.
So they don't allow me to, you know,
Sit in the courtroom and hear faith's testimony.
I wanted to be there for my daughter. She wanted me there.
Faith was 19 when all this started. She's 24 now.
I'm sure she's gonna be confident. She's gonna handle herself.
I think the truth will speak for itself.
Walking into the courtroom to get ready
To testify is very serious. Nobody's smiling.
Everybody's just, like, blank, looking at each other.
I didn't make any eye contact with anybody but r. Kelly.
It was very awkward I think for him to see me
Not only in that setting, but now I am older.
I don't look the same.
Going over every incident that happened,
It was embarrassing
Because there were certain situations
That I hadn't really explained
To either one of my parents in depth,
So it kind of was just making my palms sweat the whole time.
Seeing and hearing what he did with my daughter,
It was very, very difficult,
And I did a lot of praying sitting there.
When I was testifying
And I was describing his behavior,
That was strange to me.
The juror was laughing, and I looked.
And I was just confused
Because you don't know if these people,
If they understand, if they don't understand,
Or if they're really his fans hidden.
You really don't know. I was like, "is anybody gonna say anything?"
You know? "somebody's laughing in the courtroom."
It can be re-traumatizing to have to speak your truth
And process the trauma in a courtroom full of people
And a jury who might not believe you.
There's often a belief that they will be blamed for the trauma.
Faith: It was one of those things where it threw me off,
It didn't make me feel confident.
'cause I know my dad can hear this, you know?
I just had to kinda just have my guard down.
I couldn't have any pride about that situation.
Some of his supporters and the bloggers that support him were there.
They were giving me dirty looks.
They were saying things-- "liar" and "b-I-t-c-h."
I did turn around and look right at that blogger,
And I was very disturbed.
However, I brought myself back into character
Because I knew I was in a court of law,
And I needed to act accordingly.
But it was very difficult being there.
Consent of adults does not mean
That no crime has been committed against them.
If they had been transported across state lines
For illicit, immoral purposes,
That may very well be a federal crime-- mann act violation.
Reporter: Faith traveled several times from san antonio
To various cities across the country
To visit kelly over the course of their relationship.
She testified all of the trips were booked
By one of kelly's female assistants.
During these trips, kelly always demanded sex.
Gloria allred: A business empire such as r. Kelly's
Was used to assist in recruiting them, transporting them.
There were absolutely enablers,
With management-- oh, absolutely.
He couldn't do this by himself. It's impossible.
From the plane tickets to the hotels,
It's clear as day that there were enablers.
The defense, I think it was one of the first things
They said in their opening statement was rico.
"rico is about the mob," a group of people
That get together to commit a crime.
And r. Kelly's not john gotti,
But here what r. Kelly perpetrated was a criminal enterprise.
R. Kelly's team would find them,
Would give them the same phone numbers,
Would then fly them in, bus them in, drive them in,
And it was sort of the same m.O. Over and over again.
Faith: There was a moment in the trial where I had to talk about
The time when I was in the studio
And he questioned me with a gun.
You know, you got a gun, and there's my daughter,
And then you're manipulating her.
It was one of those things
Where I really just had to
Just take a deep breath,
Get through it, and it happened, you know?
Some people have a switch, and you can say something to make them go off.
- He's one of those people. - Kathryn m. Martin: One of the predicate acts
Involving faith was forced labor.
When the gun entered the picture,
She talks about being intimidated.
She talks about thinking that r. Kelly was unpredictable,
Not knowing what would happen next,
And that specifically constitutes forced labor,
Because there's a threat of harm,
And it forces an individual
To do something they normally would not have done.
It was an intimidation tactic, you know what I mean?
- That he pulled out a gun and had us sitting... - Mm-hmm.
At that point, that's when anger rose up in me.
That very thought of him doing that to her at the moment,
It made that violent side
That I know I can have come up in me.
I'm glad I made it out of that situation.
It was one of those moments where I didn't realize
Till I was sitting in trial,
Every time I had to go further in my testimony
I saw each moment got worse and worse and worse.
You know, one of the most disturbing things
About being there was doing her testimony
When she indicated that he had asked her,
"come over here and rub daddy's head."
Some evidence was being played,
And his music was being played in the background.
Alanna vagianos: From my understanding,
Press was only allowed to hear the audio.
Jury was hearing audio and watching the video as well.
It showed something along the lines of faith and kelly in a recording studio,
And they were playing some of kelly's music.
And he was just bobbing his head to the music
And almost taking over that moment
That was supposed to be about the evidence
And making it, like, a show.
Julia reinstein: And at first, you know, I thought maybe it was
Just a one-time thing that he did by accident, but he kept doing it.
He was vibing to his own music that was being played
From the audio of him abusing a woman.
It really showed the level of...
Narcissism, delusion,
Menacing, manipul--
Literally, it felt evil.
At the moment, it's good that I was one the other side
And wasn't in the courthouse, because to see that arrogancy
And that no sense of seriousness of what's happening
And your whole future's at stake,
And now the music sounds good?
- It was just very, very disturbing. - Wow.
One of the characteristics of narcissistic behavior
Is a complete lack of responsibility for one's own actions.
A perfect example of this is displaying a lack of empathy for the survivors.
For narcissistic people, people are very much objects
That they sort of use and discard.
They become drunk on their own power.
There are many micro-behaviors
That perpetrators and abusers use
To keep their victims in line, so to speak.
Perpetrators will do that in court.
It's an effort to exert control.
You know, a cough that the survivors recognized
As kind of a way to signal, "I'm in the room and I'm watching you."
In addition to just the anxiety and the fear,
Having to deal with some of those triggers and activators
In the courtroom and still continue on
Is really challenging,
Which makes again, when survivors testify,
It is really kind of a hero's work.
Getting cross-examined was really dramatic.
He'd be like, "you flew to see my client."
But he'd be like, "you flew to see my client!"
There would be times when I would ask him to repeat the question.
He would get upset, and he would just stare and look at me.
He'd be like, "you know!"
But there was nothing that they threw at me
That hadn't already been thrown at me in the media,
So it was just trying to bash me and tear me down
Or make me seem like a gold-digger.
Everything, of course, that somebody would say
When they're trying to get out of jail.
So I wasn't mad at him, but terrible job, guys.
Terrible job.
The defense for the perpetrator
Might try to trigger some emotional reactions
Or might try to put you in a place
Where you're thinking with your emotional mind
To sway the courtroom's perception of you,
To make you look unstable,
To make you look like you're someone who is unreliable.
Alanna vagianos: Faith's testimony was pretty riveting.
She was an absolutely unflappable the entire time. She was poised.
She was taking no ( bleep ) from the defense attorney.
She was immovable, and I was, as a journalist,
Very impressed with her ability
To get badgered with questions,
Questions that, you know, talked about her motive
Or slut-shamed her,
And for ability to answer them coolly
And very collected.
One of the great things the prosecution did
Was not only have these women on the stand
Testifying about the abuse, but having other members
Of either their family or people around them
Kind of corroborate the abuse that they had endured.
Faith's mom kelly went on the stand to testify about the intimidation
That r. Kelly's team instilled upon faith.
It was time for me to testify, and here it is,
I'm finna face the man that violated my daughter.
But I walked in with my authority.
Girl, he wouldn't look at me.
The whole time I talked, I looked dead at him.
I wanted to leap out that chair.
- Just take the chair-- - girl, I was doing like this
In the chair, you know?
Oh, was that you who told me
If I did something, you'd have my bail money?
Yeah, that was me.
It was awkward, because at that point
I'm letting you know I'm faith's mama.
I don't appreciate what you did to my daughter, and I'm not intimidated.
You did not get away with it.
Now on the legal side of the rico charges,
There's that flower of enablers
That helped him run this enterprise.
He didn't do it alone,
And for me, I don't think he should be charged alone.
The intimidation tactics remain real.
This is part of dealing with someone,
A predator who has actual resources.
R. Kelly worked very hard to make sure
That it would be difficult for these survivors
To come forward with their story.
And it could be threats of physical violence
Against their families and their loved ones.
"I'll always be able to get to you."
"you'll never be safe from me."
"no one's gonna believe you,
And you're not gonna take me down,
And you're not gonna stop me."
Part of faith's story that is very interesting
Was that her case created other criminal trials.
And her mother also testified,
And one of the things she said
Was she tried to go to a premiere
For the first "surviving r. Kelly,"
Which was closed down because of a threat,
Which we now know was a member of r. Kelly's entourage
Who called in that threat,
Making it clear that if you cross
R. Kelly and his team, "we'll come back and get you."
When we were in new york
At the premiere...
( crowd chatter )
Somebody had called in a gun threat.
Kelly rodgers: We all went back to the hotel.
I walked downstairs,
And this young lady is sitting on the couch.
"hello, mrs. Rodgers.
I got videos of your daughter
On my phone with r. Kelly."
Faith: I ended up sitting down with this employee,
Their security guard, my mom.
He proceeded to move his jacket over,
And I could I see that he had a gun.
She kind of had this weird smirk the whole time
Like everything was a joke to her.
Kelly rodgers: This woman, she proceeded to tell faith,
"here's the content."
Faith slid the phone back, face like,
"I'm not worried about that." and she left.
I mean, it sounded like something out of a movie.
It was just-- it sounded like something the mob would do,
But that's what racketeering is.
And it was a shocking thing to hear,
Just the extent that the people who worked for him would go to protect him.
Donnell russell actually went on the youtube show "niqe at nite,"
And just flat out denied any involvement with this.
My goal here lately, 'cause rob sent the message out...
When they were premiering "surviving r. Kelly,"
There was, I guess, some kind of threat or whatever that was called in,
And they're saying that I had something to do with that threat.
Well, let me just clarify.
Yes, there was a threat called in.
I don't know who made the call.
Kathryn m. Martin: Donnell russell is pending charges
Currently in both the southern district of new york
And the eastern district of new york.
Both those of charges specifically relate
To the premiere of "surviving r. Kelly,"
Basically threatening physical harm
And also inter-state stalking faith and her mother kelly.
Everyone in r. Kelly's operation needs to go to jail.
Everyone.
They had a firsthand view
To the child sex-trafficking,
To the physical, emotional, mental abuse,
And everybody had a financial incentive to look the other way.
I want to see these other enablers--
You know, when are they gonna be held accountable?
- Right. - They slowly getting cracked right now.
They starting to come to light right now.
Julia reinstein: What r. Kelly was on trial for,
It's the idea that he had an organized system in place
That allowed him to commit a variety of crimes
For years on end.
So as part of that,
That meant he had a lot of enablers
Who were keenly aware of what was going on.
They would see that these girls were in danger,
And nothing was being done.
- Demetrius smith. - Demetrius smith.
Demetrius smith.
- Officer larry hood. - Larry hood.
Julia reinstein: He was r. Kelly's childhood friend
And also a chicago police officer.
He got up there and testified
And denied seeing r. Kelly with young girls.
But then is immediately asked, "did you ever see him with this girl?
Ever see him with this girl?" and he's like, "yeah."
He said he never saw any young girls at the apartment.
Then, of course, he changed that very quickly
When talked about aaliyah being there.
June brown.
I mean, June going with me to get an abortion,
He pretended he was my uncle.
June is not a bad guy.
Maybe he did know
And tried to turn a blind eye under duress.
It doesn't make it right.
I know for a fact that he felt remorse,
And I feel real bad that he's in that situation.
- Derrel mcdavid. - Derrel mcdavid.
Derrel said that he should have "murked" me from the beginning.
He was settling cases with underage girls.
That's somebody the hat had got me in the club when I was under 21.
I worked for r. Kelly between the years 1999 and 2007.
Derrel mcdavid ran r. Kelly's operation
And had full control over robert's entire income.
Former manager derrel mcdavid left court in chicago today
After pleading not guilty to four federal charges.
He allegedly covered up kelly's incriminating videos
And paid hush money to victims.
Now just to speculate many years later with the amount of women
That had been paid off and signed contracts,
That would've gone through derrel mcdavid.
That would've never gone through robert kelly.
This was not a one-man operation.
Most people in that camp knew
That a lot of these girls were underage.
They had to.
There's a couple concepts in social psychology,
One is called groupthink.
When a group of people get together,
They're at risk of all thinking the same way,
And it's very difficult for someone to speak up
And say, "hey, this is wrong."
And there's another concept called the halo effect.
In r. Kelly's circles, the halo effect might've been at play.
Them looking at him as smarter, as more prestigious,
As more powerful.
The halo effect makes us blindly follow them.
Kathryn m. Martin: When we think about the term "enabler,"
An attorney or prosecutor is going to look at the role in the offense.
How involved was the enabler with the crime,
With the enterprise, with the infrastructure,
And as a prosecutor, you're going to think about multiple things.
You're going to think about resources, priorities.
You're going to think about the individual's role in the crime,
What they knew, when they knew it,
And how long they'd been involved.
And not just simply enabling,
Whereas they could be guilty in the court of public opinion for enabling,
Whether or not the prosecutor brings a charge
Will have to do with whether or not they were a party to a crime.
Earlier on, we actually heard from r. Kelly's personal doctor of many years,
And one of the big, contentious things in this trial was about herpes,
Whether r. Kelly had herpes
And whether he gave it to these girls without their consent.
Both of those things, it seemed pretty clear,
It has now been confirmed, yes, definitely true.
Dr. Kris mcgrath says, "I explained safe sex to him."
Kelly allegedly said, according to his doctor,
"you mean I should put a hood on it."
But he never did, and he didn't care,
And he didn't notify the victims he gave herpes to.
I can't say, oh, I felt so happy
That the doctor confirmed he had herpes.
But it was kind of like a, "hm. I told y'all so.
Is anybody gonna say anything?
Are y'all gonna stop calling me a liar now?"
Am I glad that it got exposed? Yes.
But then again, why was nobody talking about this sooner?
I went to the doctor and I found out that I had an std.
And I knew he gave it to me
'cause he was the only person I had been with.
When I was with rob, I did contract genital herpes.
It's something I just have to live with.
Basically what r. Kelly was accused of was having an std
And not telling the people he was having sex with
That he had an std.
It's not just case of a couple
Where an std might've been accidentally transmitted,
And it's really reserved for huge cases like r. Kelly
Where there is a mountain of other evidence
That they're also charging on.
I do think they will go after the larger enablers
Or the more prominent people that were with his organizations for longer periods of time.
There is no way for you to move dozens of young women
- All over the country without having a team... - By yourself.
...That's gonna make that so and make that possible.
And you gotta pay that team.
And so that was why our boycott
- Hit him in pockets. - Financial. Financial.
So if we're cancelling concerts,
If we're hitting you in your pocket,
You don't have money for all these folks,
And they then have no reason to cover for you.
The mistake people always make in reporting r. Kelly
Is not to listen to r. Kelly.
In the last serious piece of music, he sings,
"I admit. I am a broke ass legend."
He ran out of money.
Pilar melendez: After his 2019 arrest,
R. Kelly wasn't able to pay bail,
And someone had to step up and do it for him.
And his publicist even went on cnn
To make it clear that r. Kelly was not the wealthy man
That I think a lot of people associated with him being a superstar.
Joining me now is darrell johnson, a publicist for r. Kelly.
He couldn't come up with $161,000 in child support,
$100,000 in bail money.
- R. Kelly can't come up with that amount of money? - I mean, things happen.
You know, r. Kelly doesn't read that well.
He's not the best writer.
So he mismanaged his money? He spent it all?
A lot of people took advantage of him, too.
What got me was that the people around him
Were just yes men.
And you see him being used by managers,
And you can't tell him anything.
I know he knew that people stole from him,
But I think robert was willing to give
Because he was looking at the bigger picture.
For years I've been at robert about getting somebody to teach him how to read.
He trusts too many people with a lot of different things
That they take advantage of,
Having him sign different things and stuff
That he don't even know what he's signing.
Unfortunately, he's signing over portions of his royalties
And his publishing and stuff like that.
Don russell told me one time
That robert is exactly where he needs to be.
He actually said that to me.
So you can't tell me that you're here
To help my brother telling me something like that.
You make me think that he's where he's at
So you can operate and do what you're trying to do
So you can make money off of his name,
Make money off of his downfall.
I truly believe that.
We keep talking about where the money went.
You know, a big chunk of the money
Went to the lawyers who kept him out of jail,
And a big chunk of the money went to paying off victims.
You can get away with anything in america,
You can buy justice, if you have enough money to do so.
So why has he finally faced justice now?
I think the number one reason is he's broke.
I do want to testify, and I do want to be there,
But it's, like,
I also have a baby that's coming.
And it just-- it makes me really sad that--
You know, that 16-year-old me wasn't protected.
Honestly, I had never received counseling
For everything I'd been through
From the time I was sexually abused at age four,
Six, and eight.
And then rob, he abused me again at 16,
So abuse was my comfort zone.
Interviewer: Can you describe the physical abuse?
Alanna vagianos: Jerhonda met kelly at his first
Child pornography trial in chicago,
And she went there as a fan.
The fact that jerhonda met kelly while he was in trial,
He meets her at the courtroom
And literally begins preying on his next victim.
You know, if a screenwriter wrote that,
It'd be a little bit hard to believe.
After his trial, his friend bubba found me on myspace.
Bubba is jermaine maxey,
And he befriended me,
And he sent me a message and invited me to r. Kelly's party.
Jerhonda describes going to a party at his house
And just being so excited and enamored
By being around r. Kelly.
Obviously, that translated
Into a six month entanglement with him
That was extremely abusive.
Jerhonda: Rob, I handed him my I'd.
And he looked at it,
And then I said, "I'm 16."
And he told me to continue telling everybody
That you were 19 and to act 21.
I was in the house, and rob had came downstairs
And he started fondling my breasts.
And I stopped him, and I said, "I'm a virgin."
And he said, "well, that's perfect.
That means I get to train you,
And I get to take your virginity."
And he told me bend over and use the back of the couch to hold me up.
And he just entered me from behind.
Jim derogatis: Jerhonda's testimony was powerful.
She was about to give birth to her fifth child.
The judge at one point asked the defense
To perhaps speed up their questioning of her
Because the judge ann donnelly did not want to have jerhonda
Give birth on the stand.
I followed jerhonda's testimony.
Not a word deviated from what she said to me in 2017.
Her story had always been consistent.
We had proved what she said
With that first article in buzzfeed,
And then there she is in a court of law,
And the prosecution is proving it with even more evidence.
Jerhonda had created and written in a journal
About what had happened in her interactions with r. Kelly.
What was particularly jarring was her describing the day that she left,
What it took for her to leave.
Jerhonda: The breaking point for me
Was when rob slapped me,
And he choked me until I blacked out.
And then why I opened my eyes, rob spit in my face.
And he told me to get on my knees and put my head down in shame,
And he masturbates and he ejaculates on my face.
And he told me to go clean it up.
I had this blue aéropostale shirt on,
And I wiped his semen and saliva off my face onto my t-shirt.
This was the major piece of dna evidence.
They had a dna expert go on and be like,
"there is one in a number I don't even know how to say
Chance that it was anyone's but r. Kelly's."
So they really couldn't deny that this is r. Kelly's semen and spit on the shirt.
So how do you defend these allegations?
Instead they decided to say that jerhonda was a stalker.
Reporter: Defense attorneys trying to poke holes in her story,
Painting her as a crazed fan.
Lizzette martinez: I just felt so bad for her,
The way they were cross-examining her,
So late in her pregnancy, about to give birth,
And they're calling her a groupie and all the things they said about her.
It was, like, I was just disgusted by them.
Alanna vagianos: For me as a journalist,
You want to show a pattern of predatory behavior.
What better way to show that pattern
Than to say this young girl
Was picked up by this predator
At his first sexual assault trial
And is now standing on the witness stand as a victim
To tell her story of being victimized by r. Kelly?
Donna sagna: My name is donna sagna.
I met mr. Kelly in the early 2000s.
I became a nanny for the children.
I cooked, I ran errands, supported the kids.
It was a big house in olympia fields.
There was always, like, partis
And things of that nature going on.
One time I got up in the middle of the night
And whitney houston was downstairs.
So, I loved the house.
I mean, I was there maybe five days out of the week.
I've heard stories about him.
I've heard stories about a lot of people in the music business.
I never really saw him
Do something, you know, to a child or none of that.
I mean, I've seen him be a-- you know,
And be sexual or do something abnormal
That I wouldn't normally see, you know,
With regular-- you know, hanging out or whatever.
I didn't have much money.
I had a daughter. She was little.
I was trying to pay my bills.
You know, people do crazy stuff
So they can take care of their families, you know?
That's what I was focused on. My job, you know?
And keeping my job. When miss kelly left the house,
It was just me and diane.
( distorted voice ) there was an employee like diana copeland
Who he had a lot of mental control over.
So he could get diana to do
Pretty much anything he wanted her to do.
Diana worked as r. Kelly's assistant for 15 years.
Diana copeland, you handled everything
Pertaining to him for 15 years.
I don't know how she looks in the mirror.
Halle calhoun: My name is halle calhoun.
I was 20 when I met rob,
And I kind of lost myself, you know?
He kept me separate from a lot of-- any other girls
Or any-- you know, anything else he had going on.
If I had to go to the bathroo,
He would want you to text him or the assistant, so--
Diana. Yes.
Everything I did was by myself with rob,
Or, you know, I would have diana with me.
If you wanted some food, you would just text the assistant like,
"hey, this is the order."
Yes, I had a personal connection with one of them.
And sometimes when I get left, I just be around that person.
Let's say rob during azriel, went to the movies,
I'd, like, be left behind.
It felt good to actually talk to somebody
Or just be around them.
Dominique didn't have any trouble with the trial
Because during the trial she was planning a wedding.
So her focus was on getting married.
That's the past. Her focus was the present and the future.
She only kept up with the diane part
Because she was speaking to diane on the regular.
So she was very shocked that she twisted-- she didn't speak her truth.
Diana, one of kelly's assistants who you're referencing, wrapped her testimony up.
She told the jury that sometimes r. Kelly
Would get upset and he would yell,
But she never witnessed him abusing any of his girlfriends.
Pilar melendez: The way that diana copeland testified on the stand,
It made it clear that for on and off the 15 years she was with r. Kelly,
She was directly involved in helping these women cross state lines.
She was setting up their hotel rooms.
She made it clear that she was loyal to r. Kelly
And was willing to do whatever it was that he wanted
Because she was that close and that instrumental in his day-to-day life.
Noah goldberg: Diana operated as a liaison really
Between kelly and all of his girls.
Through the trial, pretty much every victim knew diana, every worker knew diana.
She took jane to the abortion.
She was more of the chaperone in that instance.
She received anna's std results,
So she was key for their evidence.
At one point in the testimony,
Prosecutors even asked diana copeland
If she would consider herself an extension of r. Kelly,
Which she said yes to.
If you said this man is so famous,
And so wealthy, and so beloved,
And he committed crimes for three decades
In full view of the world spotlight,
How could that have been?
I think witnesses like copeland
Were there to show how it could have been.
Willful ignorance of having made travel arrangements
For underage victims of kelly.
Certainly not acting to stop some of the behavior.
I think that was part of what the prosecution was trying to show.
I talked to diane because I worked under her
While I was with mr. Kelly.
So she ran his house, and I was under her.
She was on "good morning america," yeah.
Michael strahan: Diana copeland served as r. Kelly's
Executive assistant off and on for 16 years.
You know, no speaking to men, the texting to use the bathroom,
You didn't think any of that was a little strange?
I know robert the family man, the businessman,
But his personal life is robert's personal life.
So my job stops at the threshold of his bedroom door.
My daughter showed me the video, and we was like...
"uh..."
Michael strahan asked her lots of strong questions,
And she went around and she didn't really answer them.
She went all the way left, up, down.
She went everything but straight.
When you're making travel arrangements, of course you need the date of birth.
So how old were these women?
No one under 18.
In fact, when this case came up,
I'm reading that women are locked up and kidnapped,
And that's not what I'm seeing.
Pilar melendez: During diana's testimony,
Prosecutors asked her about a bunch of women
That we heard on the stand.
One of them was this woman named anna.
Anna left the house under her watch.
R. Kelly, he asked diana
Why diana copeland allowed anna to escape the house,
And the word "escape" was pretty jarring.
It did really strike me that the word "escape" was used
And was used specifically by r. Kelly himself.
Because escape is not a word that you use for a person
Or a girlfriend, as he wanted to describe these women.
Escape is a word that you use for an animal
Or a prisoner or something like that.
Diana copeland agreeing that r. Kelly
Used the word "escape" kind of proves this idea
That he kept these women against their will,
Which to me just proved further that she was totally
In the know what was happening
And just completely turned a blind eye.
Faith: This person is sick, and enabling him
And cosigning with anything he does
Makes you sick as well.
I try to sympathize and not be so angry towards people
That are associated with him, but when they go on tv
And just say nothing he does is wrong,
It's just a slap in the face.
Diana copeland, in the middle of the interview,
I felt like she was on nobody's side.
She was on her side.
I don't think that anything that I did was wrong.
She kind of kept laughing.
Not just the girls to move around...
There was a little giggle.
( laughs )
This is not funny.
He needed no help to recruit women
Or to get women.
I just kept wanting her to root for the women,
And I didn't feel like she did.
Michelle kramer: My daughter was really, really hurt,
Because she's like, "I thought she was--
You was down for the cause, being down for the truth."
And she didn't speak none of it.
She didn't speak not one truth ever.
So it was bad.
Well, when it comes to diane,
I just know that, you know,
I don't think she'd want to see nobody get hurt.
That I know for sure.
Dr. Candice norcott: The psychology of enablers,
There's a lot of unique aspects
That everyone that's part of a network like this brings.
Sometimes it's, "this is the only job I have,"
So sometimes it's financial.
Career success is tied up with this,
And then people do a lot of mental gymnastics
To minimize what they see and know
To be a part of a network like this.
I think people are ashamed of the role that they had.
I think people are scared to come out and say what their role was
Because they could end up also facing charges
For what they did to assist r. Kelly.
And a lot of them I'm sure are thinking about themselves.
Some people might be ashamed.
Some people might not want to face the public scrutiny.
There are so many people that enabled r. Kelly.
And for what it's worth, let me just be clear,
R. Kelly is not the first of his kind.
Because if #metoo made it to the music industry,
There'd just be no music industry.
I mean, it is rife with this type of behavior.
He simply is somebody who was so bold with it
And committed to this behavior that it was inevitable
That he got caught.
I do think that showbiz is actually designed
To allow people to engage in who their worst selves are.
Sometimes that just means that you're finicky,
And you want everything the way you want it,
And if it's not that way, then you're firing everybody.
And sometimes it means that it's going to allow you
To enact criminal behavior.
The bigger you get, the more power you have,
The more space you're allowed to take up in the room.
And it's about what are you doing with that space?
It was apparent throughout the case as more and more
Of former employees took the stand
That they didn't want to be there.
They still had a loyalty to him.
A lot of them had to be subpoenaed,
Including suzette mayweather.
Suzette mayweather was another employee of kelly's
Who worked for him as a personal assistant
From 2015 to 2017.
Reporter: On the stand today, we heard from suzette mayweather
That during her employment mayweather said she met
Several of kelly's girlfriends
Including joycelyn and dominique.
( distorted voice ) dominique stayed in trouble with robert
All the time pretty much because she was rebellious.
Whenever she had a chance to be around other people,
She'd be a little too talkative,
And he didn't like that.
So he kept her on what he would call punishment.
I think suzette's most powerful part of her testimony
Was her description of a birthday party.
Reporter: Mayweather said she was present
At an all-female birthday party at kelly's studio.
She said kelly became upset with one of the girlfriends
After she started twerking for another girl.
Robert noticed that dominique was talking too much
To a certain person in the room, just having too much fun.
Well, he had them escorted upstairs and he got physical with them.
Reporter: Mayweather testified the singer made the women
Fight each other in a separate room.
So one of the dynamics that r. Kelly set up
Amongst the many women that he had victimized was--
It's something we call triangulation.
Triangulation is turning people against each other.
If you don't turn against each other,
Then perhaps even more harm could come to you, a,
And, b, you would lose that position
With the person who was viewed as sort of the person in power here.
These are not dynamics people understood, right?
It's not as though they're saying,
"oh, he's triangulating us."
This was all being experienced through the lens
Of survival, confusion,
And that idea that anyone can turn on you at any moment.
Though kelly would say and put the message
In his girlfriends' ears that they are one big family,
And that, you know, it was all love and positivity,
It was totally the opposite.
Because these women are at a party twerking,
As, you know, anyone does, and you are making them
Fight each other as a punishment.
You're pitting them against one another.
This is just an example of really how nasty it could get
Over really just, like, innocent behavior.
Jim derogatis: Aaliyah is key to everything.
Kathryn m. Martin: When you start with aaliyah, you start with a large scheme.
That shows you grooming, that shows you how young,
That shows that nothing has changed.
That lays the framework for the pattern.
Jim derogatis: One of the victims who testified is addy,
Who claimed to have been raped by kelly
Just within days of the aaliyah marriage.
I was in shock.
She's from miami. She puerto rican.
We were, like, the same.
Finally, people are believing
That he really is that monster, that really is him.
I remember barry hankerson going on "dr. Oz."
Dr. Oz: We are back with aaliyah's uncle.
Barry hankerson: There was some type of rapport
My sister had with robert kelly
That began to creep in to our lives.
There are questions that only barry hankerson
And diane haughton can answer.