Jerhonda Pace Testifies R. Kelly Sexually Abused Her Before She Escaped

Pace, known as Jane Doe No. 4 in the case, was the first witness to take the stand in the R&B singer's racketeering and sex trafficking trial.

NEW YORK ― Jerhonda Pace, 28, paused to catch her breath and take a sip of water while she was on the stand testifying against R. Kelly in a Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday. She was the first witness, referred to in the case as Jane Doe No. 4, of the trial to describe alleged abuse from the R&B singer.  Her testimony included graphic details of her relationship with Kelly, which started when she was 16 and he was in his early 40s. She was a virgin when they met, she testified. She said he told her he wanted to train her to please him, made her call him “Daddy,” demanded she ask for permission for anything while spending time at his house in Olympia Fields, a suburb of Chicago, and punished her when she didn’t follow his orders. She also testified that he knowingly had unprotected sexual intercourse with her without telling her he had herpes.  Pace, who is pregnant and due “any day now,” had been mostly composed while answering Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes’s questions about the violence she said she’d faced. But her pain reverberated around the courtroom as she choked up and then gathered herself as she spoke of her last day at Kelly’s house after months of what she described as sexual and physical abuse.