An ex-tour manager testified against singer R Kelly about Aaliyah Friday.
NEW YORK — A former tour manager for R. Kelly reluctantly testified Friday that he paid a $500 bribe to a government worker to get the singer Aaliyah a fake identification card so Kelly could secretly marry her when she was 15 years old. Demetrius Smith told a jury at Kelly’s sex-trafficking trial that after he went into a Chicago-area welfare office in 1994, he brazenly approached an employee who was taking ID photos.“Hey, want to make some money?“ he said he asked the employee before handing over the cash. He was confident the bribe would work because „everybody needs some money,“ he added. The welfare card was one of two fake IDs used to clear the way for the R&B legend to marry Aaliyah after he began a sexual relationship with her and believed she had become pregnant. A marriage license that was put into evidence falsely listed her age as 18; Kelly was 27 at the time. Prosecutors say Kelly wanted to use the marriage, which was later annulled, to shield himself from criminal charges related to having sex with a minor and to prevent her from testifying against him. Aaliyah, whose full name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton, worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, „Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.
