{"id":486680,"date":"2019-06-05T11:51:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T17:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=838478"},"modified":"2019-06-05T11:51:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T17:51:10","slug":"r-kelly-reporter-jim-derogatis-talks-relentless-pursuit-of-serial-sexual-predator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/r-kelly-reporter-jim-derogatis-talks-relentless-pursuit-of-serial-sexual-predator\/","title":{"rendered":"R. Kelly Reporter Jim DeRogatis Talks Relentless Pursuit of \u2018Serial Sexual Predator\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of the decade between his 2008 acquittal on child pornography charges and 10-count indictment on aggravated criminal sexual abuse charges<\/a> in February, R. Kelly<\/a>\u2019s star continued to rise. While the R&B superstar wasn\u2019t selling at nearly the same level as previous yearslong, he still published his memoir Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me,<\/em> created new chapters of \u201chip hopera\u201d Trapped in the Closet,<\/em> performed at numerous top festivals and enlisted myriad A-list collaborations, all while emerging virtually unscathed from any legal trouble. Many willingly ignored accusations of sexual abuse<\/a>, but Kelly\u2019s alleged pattern of predatory behavior has never escaped music critic and reporter Jim DeRogatis, who broke the stories that were crucial to keeping Kelly\u2019s alleged crimes in the public eye and helped lead to the criminal charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about an [alleged] serial sexual predator who has destroyed the lives of 48 women whose names I know, all right?,\u201d DeRogatis tells Rolling Stone.<\/em> \u201cAnd if I know many, how many more are there? And in full view of the world for 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeRogatis\u2019 powerful new book Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly<\/em><\/a> details his investigative reporting of the singer, from receiving the first tip to the star\u2019s current accusations. As he writes in Soulless<\/em>, \u201cSometimes you choose your stories, and sometimes they choose you\u201d; for DeRogatis, it began with a fax anonymously sent to him in November 2000 that read, in part, \u201cRobert\u2019s problem \u2014 and it\u2019s a thing that goes back many years \u2014 is young girls.\u201d It led him and his former Chicago Sun-Times<\/em> colleague Abdon Pallasch to uncover harrowing stories of underage girls with life-shattering claims and multiple lawsuits alongside non-disclosure agreements with alleged victims.<\/p>\n

Following his initial December 2000 report, DeRogatis was anonymously sent two sex tapes that were subsequently turned over to authorities. The first arrived at the Sun-Times<\/em> two weeks after their first story published. The second, delivered to DeRogatis\u2019 home in February 2002, captured what appeared to be a 14-year-old girl engaged in sexual acts with the singer and eventually led to 21 counts (reduced to 14) of child pornography against Kelly in 2002. (Kelly was acquitted of all charges in 2008, partially due to the accuser not testifying against the singer. He has consistently denied all wrongdoing.)<\/p>\n

Between 2000 and 2008, DeRogatis and Pallasch shared 33 bylines covering Kelly. However, as he points out, there was little published outside their work. \u201cWe felt very lonely,\u201d DeRogatis says. In July 2017, the journalist broke the explosive news about Kelly\u2019s alleged abusive \u201csex cult<\/a>,\u201d which appeared in Buzzfeed<\/a>. Following DeRogatis\u2019 first Buzzfeed piece, more women went on record with him to tell their stories, including Jerhonda Pace, Lizzette Martinez and Dominique Gardner. His recent reporting has also appeared in The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Surviving R. Kelly<\/em>, the Lifetime docuseries that aired in January and is deeply informed by nearly 20 years of DeRogatis\u2019 dogged reporting, amplified the women\u2019s stories. Coupled with a groundswell of movements such as #MuteRKelly, #MeToo and Time\u2019s Up, the women\u2019s stories received the wider attention and outrage they have long deserved. Days after the docuseries aired, Cook County State\u2019s Attorney Kimberly Foxx urged victims to come forward<\/a>, which led to the 10-count indictment against Kelly in February. Kelly has pleaded<\/a> not guilty.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing entertaining about \u2026 the scars on the wrists that survivors have shown me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Soulless<\/em> paints vivid portraits of the alleged victims and gives an unflinching look at society\u2019s neglect of young black girls and how money and fame financed the power to continuously get away with heinous alleged crimes. It also exposes a tangle of enablers \u2014 from religious organizations to the music industry to attorneys \u2014 all of which helped keep Kelly\u2019s alleged abuse a secret. DeRogatis spoke to Rolling Stone<\/em> about the institutions and people who helped enable and ignore the alleged sexual abuse, what the first trial lacked and his perspective on the new indictment and possible future legal investigations.<\/p>\n

How challenging was it to relive 19 years of reporting and connect all the dots again?
<\/strong>It\u2019s hellish \u2026 [but] it just seemed like it was still necessary because people do not know the history. It\u2019s about Chicago, and by extension society and America, failing young black girls at every level: the churches, the schools, the law enforcement system, one ridiculous judge, one super-cynical civil attorney, journalism, criticism \u2026 Harvey Weinstein is a horrible predator, but he was somewhat in the shadows: he\u2019s a producer; the industry knows him. R. Kelly, however, is singing at the opening of the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. He\u2019s selling 100 million albums and nobody stops him, and instead thousands of people enable him literally passing his phone number on to preteen [and] teenage girls to Jive Records making almost a billion dollars on his record sales and of course never thinking to derail the gravy train. It\u2019s a horrible, cynical story.<\/p>\n

Many women claim Kelly abused them, but still loved and felt sympathy for him. Why do you think that was?
<\/strong>I don\u2019t understand it, but I know enough talking to psychologists and sexual assault<\/a> experts [that] it\u2019s an exceedingly complicated issue in our rape culture. And there\u2019s a wide variety of reactions and in cases of domestic abuse, whether you\u2019re talking to a psychologist or talking to a cop on the beat \u2026 \u201cOh no, it\u2019s just a big misunderstanding; nothing happened. I love him; he loves me.\u201d And I think from the beginning that was [the case] from that very first fax: \u201cHe needs help, maybe you can help stop him\u201d to Dominique Gardner telling me, \u201cI loved him; he loved me.\u201d There was never hatred; it was never people trying to tear down this super-successful black superstar. To hear the same stories being told again and again and again over many years by people who never spoke to each other in different parts of the country, when his attorney now says all those women are liars, I just find that literally impossible.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Jim DeRogatis talks to reporters after a news conference by the Cook County State\u2019s Attorney office in February. Photo credit: Kiichiro Sato\/AP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the music industry\u2019s seeming culpability.<\/strong>
Jive Records was named in many of the lawsuits. And [Washington Post<\/em>\u2018s] Geoff Edgers is the only one who\u2019s succeeded in getting [Jive label heads] Barry Weiss and Clive Calder on the record<\/a> and he did and that\u2019s valuable. And Weiss was blowing it off: \u201cI ran a record company, how was I supposed to know?\u201d Well, you\u2019re being sued for $10 million, that\u2019s how you know. [Jive Records was a co-defendant in accuser Tiffany Hawkins\u2019 1996 lawsuit against Kelly, which claimed the singer had underage sex with her starting at age 15. The label\u2019s attorneys successfully argued that they should not be found liable.] There\u2019s no way that didn\u2019t cross your desk. It\u2019s reprehensible, it\u2019s unconscionable [and] it\u2019s part of their corporate culture. Britney Spears was allowed to literally destroy herself in full view of the world. Look at Lou Pearlman with Backstreet Boys and \u2018NSync. Jive was a truly despicable company. (Weiss declined to comment for this article.)<\/p>\n

What I think is singularly unique about Kelly is the sheer body count of the biggest voice in R&B for the last 30 years in the world spotlight \u2026 From Frank Sinatra \u2014 way before Frank Sinatra \u2014 to Ryan Adams<\/a>, bad behavior proliferates in rock & roll. It is now rock & roll\u2019s time, and by rock & roll I mean all popular music; it\u2019s [the music industry\u2019s] time in the #MeToo spotlight. I\u2019m unaware, as a student of rock history my whole life, of a body count like this. \u2026 I know that what I\u2019ve seen for 19 years is deadly real. There\u2019s nothing entertaining about that videotape [from the trial] or the first one [also sent to DeRogatis], or the scars on the wrists that survivors have shown me from when they\u2019ve tried to hurt themselves. That\u2019s real. That\u2019s as real as real gets.<\/p>\n

Many of Kelly\u2019s accusers were aspiring singers that he allegedly lured with the promise of nurturing their careers. You speak to Tiffany Hawkins, the singer who first sued Kelly in 1996, for the first time in the book. What did you take away from that conversation?
<\/strong>I believe in authenticity and I believe in sincerity and the power of this art. So, when it ends and Tiffany tells me, \u201cI don\u2019t sing anymore\u201d \u2014 this is a girl who\u2019s from [Chicago\u2019s] South Side [and] sees Amsterdam, Paris, London, everything in America, singing behind her best friend Aaliyah \u2014 and she can no longer sing. And then not only can she no longer sing, she no longer listens to music. That just breaks my fucking heart.<\/p>\n

Beyond the music industry failings, there\u2019s also the justice system. Where did the prosecution go wrong in the child pornography trial or is it really just that the alleged victim didn\u2019t testify?
<\/strong>I place much of the blame on Judge Vincent Gaughan, who for six years would gather in closed chamber hearings and seal everything, [keeping it from] the press. [It] remains sealed to this day. We still only know a fraction of what happened during the Kelly trial. Everything that happened in closed chambers in six years remains a mystery and sealed by this judge and Illinois\u2019 higher courts backed him.<\/p>\n

Gaughan is a bad actor. There\u2019s no two ways about it. I think his motivation was largely just that this was a high-profile case and he was going be the Lance Ito of this case \u2026 [Gaughan] made it about one girl on one videotape and the fact that neither she nor her parents testified or even appeared in court for one day enabled the jury to acquit because they had reasonable doubt. They had no doubt that that was Kelly on the tape, they\u2019ve all said, but they never heard from the victim. This is Rape Culture 101. (Through a rep for the Circuit Court of Cook County, Gaughan did not immediately reply to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about Chicago, and by extension society and America failing young black girls at every level.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think if the Aaliyah stuff had been allowed into evidence \u2013 [Kelly married the singer when she was 15 and he was 27] \u2014 if the civil lawsuits had been allowed into evidence, if other young women had been allowed to testify that he had done similar [things] to them\u2026 There were other videotapes on the street; apparently one of the ones in possession of the State\u2019s Attorney right now was already on the street. Nothing else was allowed in court except one 26-minute-and-39 second videotape, which really should\u2019ve been enough. It\u2019s the most horrifying thing I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

Just reading the videotape description in your book was enough for me to be like, \u201cHow was that not enough?\u201d
<\/strong>Kelly had the best-paid attorneys in Chicago \u2014 four of them \u2014 one of whom bragged that \u201cthis case is putting my grandchildren through college.\u201d He gamed the system with his money. The difference between 2008 and 2019 is he is broke. Why is he broke? Because so much of that money has gone to lawyers and to covering up, to settlements, to get non-disclosure agreements for 30 years.<\/p>\n

Do you think the sexual abuse charges levied in February are stronger?
<\/strong>Kim Foxx\u2019s case is a joke. All four of those victims are going to be torn to shreds. Jerhonda\u2019s story is a complicated one. [In 2017, Jerhonda Pace broke a non-disclosure agreement to share her story<\/a> of Kelly\u2019s alleged abuse with DeRogatis. She is one of the four women whose allegations formed the basis of Kelly\u2019s original February indictment alongside 11 new counts of sexual assault<\/a> revealed last week.] She was incredibly brave in telling me everything, including things that were very embarrassing to her. She was a kid. She was stupid. She took his money. Took his money twice. First time, she tried to give his money back because she felt sorry for him.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spoken to the hairdresser<\/a> [who has accused Kelly of sexual assault]. She\u2019s a very bright, articulate woman, but [the alleged 2003 assault is] also very old. According to federal authorities who have been talking to me, there are three federal investigations<\/a> \u2014 Southern District of New York, Northern District of Illinois and the Homeland Security Department. [The latter is] a 26-member task force that is looking at 30 years of sex trafficking because that is in their purview and the Mann Act; transporting underage girls across [state lines]. [Foxx] rushed the case is what the Feds tell me. They are frustrated with her. She watched Surviving R. Kelly<\/em> and held a press conference three days after the last episode aired.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHe gamed the system with his money. The difference between 2008 and 2019 is he is broke.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As you mention in the book, Foxx watched the first trial in 2008.
<\/strong>She was a sex crimes prosecutor in the office \u2014 not on that case \u2014 and stopped into court several times. And I believe she was rightfully [and] righteously outraged at that verdict and that trial, but I think in rushing to be the first to indict him now, it just makes for a weak case, especially given the revelations coming out with her and [celebrity lawyer Michael] Avenatti. [Chicago Tribune<\/em> reported<\/a> the pair were in close contact and also met at O\u2019Hare airport in the lead-up to Kelly\u2019s February indictment]. I think anybody with half a brain would have been skeptical of Michael Avenatti in the first place, which is not to say he doesn\u2019t have real evidence. But there were so many videotapes. Look, there are videotapes somewhere in a locker at [Chicago Police Department]. There\u2019s the images that surfaced when [Kelly] was arrested in Florida. There\u2019s the first videotape that the Chicago Sun-Times<\/em> gave to police in January 2001, two weeks after our first story ran. This city is lousy with R. Kelly videotapes. They\u2019re dusty now and they\u2019re on VHS.<\/p>\n

Do you have any sense of where the strongest case might be?
<\/strong>I have a lot of faith in the Department of Homeland Security, which I wouldn\u2019t say in any other realm in which they operate. But having talked to investigators, they are being methodically thorough. There\u2019s nobody in the book that they haven\u2019t talked to. They\u2019ve spread out across the country: Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They are being remarkably thorough. But it\u2019s hard after 19 years not to be super cynical.<\/p>\n

Another institution that could be held culpable and you address in the book is<\/strong> journalism and music critics.
<\/strong>[R. Kelly] was never more successful at any point of his career than in those six years while he\u2019s on trial for 21 counts of child pornography and that is sick. Is there something inherently in popular music, in rock & roll, that we are drawn to the most transgressive people? That\u2019s a really disturbing thought for me. There\u2019s this weird thing that I think we haven\u2019t even begun to wrestle with that may be really unique to music more so than any other art form because of the way it\u2019s so ethereal and becomes part of our lives. I understand the people who had R. Kelly\u2019s \u201cStep in the Name of Love\u201d at their wedding or \u201cI Believe I Can Fly\u201d at their graduation and to turn their back on that now is to reject part of their lives. It\u2019s become their song.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019m saying there\u2019s no right or wrong. I don\u2019t know what the right response from journalism and criticism should\u2019ve been. Journalism should\u2019ve done the reporting, but the critics \u2026 There was a good decade there where I was still reviewing his music and a few of the concerts and just trying to bring my perspective of what I knew about what he\u2019d been accused of into what I\u2019m hearing in the art, when the innumerable references in songs and in his stage shows to golden showers, and there it is on the videotape. And that\u2019s one of many examples.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019ve seen him locking a woman up in a cage onstage<\/a>, which seemed brazen given his past history.
<\/strong>Here\u2019s where I can\u2019t forgive critics. He\u2019s never made a secret of this, from the very beginning \u2014 [Aaliyah\u2019s Kelly-produced debut album] Age Ain\u2019t Nothing But a Number<\/em> to [Kelly\u2019s 2018 song] \u201cI Admit\u201d<\/a> \u2014 he is talking about it. And this is why I say criticism has failed. If it\u2019s in the music, we can\u2019t ignore it. That\u2019s my definition of what a critic is. My job is to listen and think and put it in context as a critic. And if you\u2019re hearing Trapped in the Closet<\/em>, \u201cIn the Kitchen\u201d and these songs, and you\u2019re saying they\u2019re all shtick, you\u2019re either ignorant of the context or you\u2019re turning a blind eye toward it and both are unforgivable in the ranks of any serious critic. I\u2019m not saying he could\u2019ve been brought down by criticism, but I\u2019m saying criticism left this out of the conversation.<\/p>\n

You had the idea to start a book about this in 2017 and then the new indictment comes with even more possible charges. Did you have any hesitation for waiting on the book to add new information?
<\/strong>No. I mean, Number One: I still think that the conversation in general is not focusing on the scope of these crimes \u2026 I still think certainly Kim Foxx isn\u2019t talking about the breadth of 30 years and dozens and dozens of women. That\u2019s necessary for the discussion. Number Two: the day I can hang this up and read about it instead of having to report any of it is going to be a good day. I don\u2019t know if I want to live with it much longer.<\/p>\n

Social media is a useful new tool in this for all of us as journalists. It also is a double-edged sword. When I have trolls posting video of my daughter, pictures of my ex-wife and smears, it\u2019s horrifying. It was difficult enough to do this story when I was getting nasty letters, nasty faxes and nasty voicemails and one bullet through my window in January 2001. And now the fact that they can destroy you online is just horrifying. There\u2019s a price to be paid for controversial journalism, and I think that\u2019s why a lot of people shy away from it.<\/p>\n

Can you?<\/strong> This has been a defining part of your career for so long. What if more women approach you with information?
<\/strong>Well, look, Lester Bangs [is] tattooed on my right forearm. If I had not spent a day with him at 17 two weeks before he died [and] written his biography in 2000, my life would be immeasurably poorer. I would not be here doing what I do today talking to you, or talking on the radio or teaching criticism. I could\u2019ve lived very happily never writing this book, because if I hadn\u2019t written the book, it would\u2019ve meant those women weren\u2019t calling me and telling me their lives were ruined. And that would\u2019ve been a fine trade-off. There are places for women to turn. Faith Rodgers came forward<\/a>. I\u2019ve never spoken to her \u2014 I\u2019ve spoken to her mother. There are people now. There are attorneys. There are activists groups.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most of the decade between his 2008 acquittal on child pornography charges and 10-count indictment on aggravated criminal sexual abuse charges in February, R. Kelly\u2019s star continued to rise. While the R&B superstar wasn\u2019t selling at nearly the same level as previous yearslong, he still published his memoir Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-486680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 16:01:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}