R. Kelly Trial: Defense Expert Scratches Mole; Questions Sex Tape Authenticity

A forensic expert, who was called by the defense in the R. Kelly trial, has shown that the alleged mole in the sex tape is actually not a mole at all and the sex tape itself may not even be authentic.

A mark on the back of the man in the alleged R. Kelly sex tape has been proved to be not a mark on his back at all. On Thursday (June 5), a forensic expert called by the defense at R. Kelly’s child pornography trial testified that the fingernail-sized mark seen on the lower back of the man in the sex tape is not a mole at all but instead just a video distortion.

Charles Palm, the expert analyzing the video, testified that the mark appears and disappears because the video has been duplicated so many times.

Now the trial which both Kelly and the alleged victim, who is now 23, deny is them in the video, may harm the prosecutors’ case against Kelly as Palm also testified that a video like the alleged sex tape could be created in just months with manipulation. Though argued by a prosecution witness that it would be practically impossible for someone to go through each frame to calibrate everything from shadows to blinks of an eye (all in perfect sync), Palm showed otherwise. The video analysis expert had an example of a manipulated sex tape he created in three months showing jurors images of the male and female fading in and out against the tape’s distinctive log-cabin background.

Earlier this week, prosecution’s star witness Lisa Van Allen testified that she had multiple three-way sexual encounters with Kelly and the alleged victim in the case, but a private investigator for Kelly testified that he believes Allen and her fiance, Yul Brown, were trying to get money out of the R&B singer when they claimed a publisher had offered them a $300,000 deal for a book about Kelly.

Defense witness Jack Palladino said he took the claim by Allen and Brown as an attempt to extort money in exchange for their silence.

Defense continued to cast doubt in testimony of prosecution witnesses and also claimed that at least one acquaintance who identified the alleged victim for the prosecution had told them earlier that she wasn’t really sure the alleged victim was on the recording.