Nine years after investigation, R. Kelly trial set to begin

Nine years after police launched an investigation into allegations that R&B singer R. Kelly had engaged in criminal sexual behavior with an underage girl, the singer's Chicago trial is finally ready to begin this week.

Robert Sylvester Kelly, 41, was indicted on multiple counts of child pornography in June 2002, three years after police began investigating the case against him. But through a series of delays, the trial has been put off for  years.

Now the court has set a date to begin the trial on Friday, May 9, and courthouse observers expect it to happen, finally.

Kelly's alleged involvement with young girls reportedly dates back to the 1990s, and the Chicago Sun-Times reported on the current investigation in a December 2000 story. But the public interest in the case reached a peak after a videotape was sent anonymously to the newspaper in February 2002. The tape showed a man alleged to be Kelly engaging in various sex acts -- including urinating on the underage girl.

Prosecutors are expected to introduce a key witness in the trial who will testify that she, Kelly and the girl engaged in a threesome on at least one occasion, and that the girl was under the age of consent. The girl was as young as 13 sometime between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1, 2000, when the tape was made, according to prosecutors.

But the girl herself has denied her involvement in the affair, according to the Chicago Tribune. That means prosecutors will have the challenge of portraying the alleged victim as a liar, which some observers have called a "heavy burden."