R Kelly prosecutors rest; defense calls on singer’s allies

Prosecutors at the R. Kelly sex trafficking trial ended their case Monday after calling dozens of witnesses over the past month who detailed the government’s sweeping allegations against the singer in lurid detail.

The defense began its case later in the day by starting to call Kelly loyalists to the witness stand in an effort to cast doubt on some of the accusers’ accounts.

A New York City jury has heard several women and two men who were in Kelly’s celebrity orbit tell the panel that he groomed them for unwanted sex and psychologically tormented them — mostly when they were teenagers — in episodes dating to the 1990s. Their accounts were backed at least in part by former Kelly employees whose own testimony suggested they were essentially paid off to look the other way or actively enable the recording artist.

Kelly’s lawyers must find ways to counter testimony from