R. Kelly enters not guilty plea in sex abuse case
Singer R. Kelly is accused of sexually abusing a woman and three underage girls over a 12-year span; Matt Finn reports from Chicago.
Parents of R. Kelly's girlfriend Azriel Clary cried on "CBS This Morning" Wednesday, saying they felt like they "failed" their daughter.
Angelo and Alice Clary say that Azriel, now 21, met Kelly in 2015 when she was 17 years old — and that three days later, she met the singer in a hotel without their permission.
Angelo claimed Azriel told him it was an "audition" for her music career and that Angelo and Alice met with him several times before and after Azriel first met the crooner.
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"He flew us to Chicago," Alice said, adding that Kelly met with her and Angelo about business partnerships, but nothing came to fruition.
When interviewer Gayle King asked the parents about leaving their daughter with the singer, who already had been accused (and acquitted) of having inappropriate and illegal relationships with underage girls, they were candid.
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"It gave me pause," Angelo admitted. "But you're talking about a young lady who was raised by two parents. I didn't trust him, but I raised my child right. I trusted my daughter would be honest with us. This was [supposed to be about] music."
Angelo and Alice signed a letter giving Azriel permission to live with a woman who they believed worked for Sony Music to act as a chaperone for their daughter, but later found the woman worked for Kelly.
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King asked if they felt responsible for their daughter's fate.
“I feel like I failed my daughter because I should have saw different signs,” Angelo confessed. “I should have saw the change in my baby girl instead of the love that we instilled in her, that she was showing us and putting on a charade. So guess what? We can take responsibility. But to the world, how much responsibility did R. Kelly take?”
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“This [is] a sick situation that nobody – nobody – would ever see [and] think we would be in because [of] how protective we are of our children,” he said.
Alice claimed it wasn't just Kelly and his team perpetuating his alleged abuse, but also Azriel herself, Alice alleged.
"It was also our daughter," Alice fumed. "She was lying and duping us from the beginning."
Kelly and Azriel's stories about her relationship with Kelly — and that of her parents — is very different from Angelo and Alice's accounts.
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Azriel told "CBS This Morning" in an interview airing last week that her parents have come to visit her in Chicago and that they stopped answering her calls. "I wouldn't look him in the eye because he's a liar. He's a manipulative liar," she said of her father, adding, "I was not having sex with [Kelly] when I was 17."
Azriel currently lives with Kelly and Kelly's second girlfriend, Joycelyn Savage.
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Kelly, for his part, alleged that the Clarys tried to "sell" their daughter to him when she was underage.
Azriel said of Angelo, "He's very manipulative. He's the one you need to watch out for." She alleged that Angelo threatened to expose nude photos of her online if she didn't have Kelly send tens of thousands of dollars into his bank account.
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Angelo and Alice Clary vehemently denied Azriel's claims.
Last month, Kelly was charged in a grand jury indictment unsealed on Feb. 22 with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse involving four victims, three of whom were minors. The next day, Kelly was booked and a bond court judge set the singer's bail at $1 million, requiring Kelly to pay 10 percent.
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Kelly — who must not have contact with females younger than 18, according to the conditions of his release — initially was unable to come up with the $100,000 bail to be released, and spent the weekend in a Chicago jail.
On Feb. 25, Kelly posted bail. His release came hours after his lawyer pleaded not guilty on his behalf to all 10 counts.
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In 2008, Kelly was acquitted of statutory rape.
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