First prosecution witnesses in R. Kelly trial identify alleged victim

Simha Jamison, a 24-year-old hair stylist, remained unruffled as prosecutors tried to link Kelly and the alleged victim to the tape and an attorney for the R&B star grilled her on cross examination.

"I thought she looked just like my best friend," Jamison said when the prosecution asked who she thought the female was on the video.

Jamison added that she knew the alleged victim's face as well as she knows "the back of my hand."

When prosecutors asked Jamison if she recognized the man in the tape, she leaned forward in the witness stand, peeked around the corner of the high judge's bench and identified Kelly by his light tan suit.

Kelly, 41, has pleaded not guilty to charges he videotaped himself having sex with a girl as young as 13. His attorneys say Kelly's not on the tape. They say the alleged victim, now 23 years old, also denies she's the person in the video.

During the cross-examination of Jamison and other witnesses Wednesday, the defence also revealed their strategy may be to suggest Kelly's image was computer-generated. "Something could have been done to put a different head on that body," defence attorney Sam Adam Jr. said. He also referred to movies where characters had been digitally altered.

Kelly, who appeared grim-faced and stressed on Tuesday, looked more relaxed during testimony Wednesday, listening carefully to the witnesses. Jurors also appeared more at ease, taking detailed notes during some five hours of testimony.

An aunt and an uncle of the alleged victim on Wednesday also identified the female on the tape as their niece. But it was Jamison, wearing a black vest and large turquoise-colored ring, who stood out.

She testified that she and the alleged victim were best friends for about 10 years into their late teens, and shared a love for playing basketball. She also said her friend sang in a youth R&B group.

Jamison testified she and her friend visited Kelly at his recording studio and at a Chicago basketball court dozens of times starting when they were around the age of 12.

Her friend first introduced her to Kelly as "her godfather," Jamison said, adding that the singer frequently gave her friend cash gifts - "no less than $100 and no more than $500".

She said the two also visited the home where authorities say the sex tape was filmed. Jamison said she saw the tape in 2002 and again just before testifying, and she believed her friend was 13 or 14 at the time.

Jamison remained insistent under tough cross-examination later in the day from Adam, including when he pressed her about whether the body of the female on the video looked too mature for an early teenager.

At another point, raising his voice, Adam said the reason the alleged victim never told the witness she had a sexual relationship with Kelly was because there wasn't one and "because it's not her on the tape."

"Are you asking or telling me?" Jamison shot back.

Adam also showed pictures of a shirtless Kelly and asked Jamison how she knew it was his body on the video.

"His head was attached to it," she responded, prompting laughter from several jurors.

Jamison's father, Peter Thomas, testified earlier that the alleged victim's involvement in the video was the talk of their neighbourhood. When his daughter heard about it in 2002, he said she would cry herself to sleep but wouldn't discuss it.

The most highly charged cross-examination came after an aunt of the alleged victim described how she and other relatives viewed and discussed the tape in late 2001, several weeks before someone mailed the tape to the Chicago Sun-Times and the newspaper turned it over to authorities.

Adam repeatedly asked Delores Gibbon, who works as a Chicago Police officer, why she didn't immediately go to authorities with the tape if she suspected it was child pornography.

Gibbon said she was torn between her job and concern for the alleged victim and her parent.

Adam pounded his fist as he said someone wanted to "get back at Mr. Kelly" in a business dispute and hoped to "extort Kelly" for money.

After opening arguments on Tuesday, prosecutors showed the video that they say was made sometime between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1, 2000.

The 27-minute homemade video shows a man having sex with a young female, who is naked most of the time - save for a necklace with a cross dangling from it. The female is often blank-faced, and she calls the man "Daddy."

Kelly won a Grammy in 1997 for the gospel-tinged "I Believe I Can Fly," and is known for such songs as "Bump N' Grind," "Ignition," and "Trapped in the Closet," a multipart saga about the sexual secrets of a lively and ever-expanding cast of characters. He faces up to 15 years if convicted.