R. Kelly trial: singer’s lawyers to question man who claims he was paid to find incriminating sex tapes

On Tuesday, Charles Freeman told the jury in R. Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago that the singer and his associates hired him to track down incriminating videotapes allegedly showing Kelly sexually assaulting a girl, promising to pay him $1 million for his efforts.

Attorneys for one of Kelly’s co-defendants on Wednesday sought to portray Freeman as a liar, grilling him about inconsistencies between his trial testimony and what he told federal and Cook County grand juries three years ago.

Beau Brindley, who represents former Kelly business manager Derrel McDavid, wasted no time attacking Freeman’s credibility during a heated cross-examination  

“It’s difficult to trust the word of a person who lies?” Brindley asked early in his cross-examination.

Freeman agreed.

Brindley picked apart details given by Freeman about the tape, and conversations he had about it, the cross-examination growing heated at times.

At one point, when Freeman appeared to laugh, Brindley asked asking; “Is this funny? Are you having a good time?”

When Freeman said yes, Brindley replied by asking if Freeman was bothered at all that he held onto child porn, in reference to the copies he made, for 20 years.

Freeman said no. 

While Freeman admitted he has lied multiple times about videotapes related to Kelly, he denied ever lying to criminal investigators or lying under oath.

Nonetheless, Brindley highlighted multiple inconsistencies in Freeman’s accounts of how he was enlisted to locate missing sex tapes when Kelly was under investigation in the early 2000s for having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

While testifying before a Cook County grand jury in 2019, Freeman testified he learned where the missing tapes were located from Kelly’s ex-girlfriend, Lisa Van Allen. Brindley noted Freeman told the jury during Kelly’s trial on Tuesday that he had learned where the tape was and who had it from McDavid and private investigator Jack Paladino, making no mention of Van Allen.

Asked if he’d forgotten he’d called Van Allen, Freeman said no, but insisted he was not asked any specific questions about phone calls he’d made after talking to McDavid and Paladino.

Brindley also attacked Freeman’s accounts of how he found a Kelly sex tape in Georgia.

Freeman testified Tuesday, that when he went to the house in Georgia, a woman who answered the door let him in, and pointed to a TV, where he found two tapes sitting on a stand and one leaning outside a VCR. He said he put the latter tape into the VCR to watch it, and upon seeing Kelly on the tape, he took it out of the VCR and grabbed it – along with the other two.

“You think the woman was there alone watching the child porn?” Brindley asked.

Freeman said that was none of his concern, and he “doesn’t know how important it was to her.”

Brindley noted Freeman told a Cook County grand jury he searched through several tapes in the house before finding one with Kelly’s name on it, and the girl’s first name.

Freeman said he left out details in his grand jury testimony, because he was not asked for details.

Brindley also tried to poke holes in Freeman’s accounts of when he found out the tapes he was being asked to recover contained child pornography. Freeman testified Tuesday that he first realized it after finding the tape, and putting it in a VCR to see what was on it, and saw Kelly having sex with a young girl, but in previous accounts for a grand jury, he said Van Allen told him what was on the tape before he went to Georgia.

Going back to the contract with Jack Paladino to recover the tapes, Brindley noted Freeman testified on Tuesday he signed a contract before going to get the tapes, but told a grand jury in 2019 he signed the contract after he’d already retrieved the tapes, and swapped the original sex tape for a copy.

Nonetheless, Freeman maintained he’s telling the truth, and denied any discrepancy, saying his grand jury affidavit was a “summary of what happened.”

Freeman said he would not have gone out of town to “rob somebody of a video tape” without a contract, because “that’s not me.”

Brindley also suggested that it was Freeman who approached Kelly’s team about tracking down the singer’s missing sex tapes, questioning why a glorified “t-shirt salesman” would be entrusted by Kelly’s team to recover the tapes, and suggesting Freeman “tried to shake down Mr. Kelly.”

“After you tried to get this money from Robert Kelly, Derrel McDavid told you very explicitly, if it was up to him, you wouldn’t get a dime?” Brindley said, also asking if McDavid called him a thief and a liar, and said he could “go f*** himself.”

Freeman said McDavid never said any of that to him.

Later, Freeman admitted to lying to a polygraph examiner about making copies of the sex tape, when Kelly’s team asked him to take a lie detector test about whether he’d done so.

Freeman said he lied to the polygraph examiner, McDavid, and Paladino about the copies he’d made of the tapes, and was told he passed the lie detector test.