#What you need to know about R. Kelly’s sex trafficking trial

R&B singer R. Kelly will be in criminal court Wednesday for his long-awaited sex trafficking trial.

Opening statements are scheduled at the Downtown Brooklyn courthouse in the trial for the 54-year-old, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly. His New York trial, which is expected to last about month, will include sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

Kelly is accused of orchestrating a scheme to recruit underage girls to engage in sex acts with him.

The “I Believe I Can Fly” Singer faces more than 20 federal criminal charges in various jurisdictions. Kelly’s trial has been delayed multiple times as the former singer made changes to his legal team.

For the New York trial, prosecutors have multiple currently anonymous women accusers as well as former associates of the crooner ready to testify in court who have never spoken out about their experiences with him.

Kelly is accused of telling a team of employees — including managers and security guards — to find women and girls he could have sex with. Some of the alleged victims traveled from other states to be with Kelly, prosecutors have charged.

Those activities violate the Mann Act, a law that makes it illegal to “transport any woman or girl” across state lines.

When the women and girls arrived where they were staying with Kelly, someone in Kelly’s entourage would lay out rules including not speaking with one another other, what they’re permitted to wear and that they needed permission from Kelly before eating or using the the bathroom, prosecutors have said. Additionally, his sexual abuse victims were allegedly mandated to address him as “Daddy.”

The alleged creep also conspired with others to make a phony ID that showed she was over 18 for the since-deceased singer Aaliyah, according to prosecutors. Kelly allegedly abused her while she was underaged.

Then, Kelly planned to marry the singer — who died in a plane crash at 22 — so she would be unable to testify against him, according to the charges.

The singer has pleaded not guilty and argued that the alleged victims he slept with were actually groupies who wanted to be in sexual relationships with Kelly. His defense lawyers have claimed the women only charged they were sexually abused when years later public opinion on the once-popular singer soured.

The Grammy award-winning singer is currently locked up at Metropolitan Detention Center, the notorious jail where Ghislaine Maxwell is held. His detention in New York came after the NYPD and federal authorities arrested him in Chicago in the summer 2019.

Separately, Kelly faces criminal cases in Minnesota and Illinois for alleged sex crimes.

Kelly’s alleged victims’ stories were documented in the documentary series Surviving R Kelly. The Lifetime documentary, broadcast in 2019 and early 2020, revealed that a crew of accomplices protected Kelly from facing repercussions by keeping his victims quiet.

With Post Wires