R. Kelly accuser says singer choked her when she was 16

CALIFORNIA (AFP): A woman told R. Kelly’s trial Thursday that the disgraced R&B star choked her until she passed out during a six-month sexual relationship they had when she was a teenager.

Jerhonda Pace, now 28, wept as she read aloud from a journal entry describing how Kelly slapped her, saying “If I lied to him again, it’s not going to be an open hand next time.”

“He choked me during an argument” before she had sex with him, wrote the then 16-year-old Pace, who said that after having sex with Kelly for the last time she “became fed up, and I went home and confessed.”

Pace also said Kelly had requested she dress as a Girl Scout and do her hair in pigtails during sex, which he filmed.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Deveraux Cannick aimed to present Pace as a “groupie” who was “stalking” Kelly after their relationship’s end, which Pace denied.

The accuser also told Cannick that if she was on Kelly’s “bad side” she sometimes waited up to three days for permission to use the restroom.

Pace is among the women who have accused Kelly of spreading herpes to her without disclosing that he had contracted the virus.

Kelly’s doctor for 25 years, Kris McGrath, testified Thursday that he prescribed the musician medication to treat symptoms of genital herpes as early as 2007.

McGrath — who also socialized with Kelly –- said he prescribed the singer herpes medication “so often that I memorized the phone number” of the pharmacy.

Kelly, 54, is charged with racketeering, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and forced labor between 1994 and 2018.

He denies the charges, but faces between 10 years and life in prison if convicted on all counts.

The trial, expected to last a month, finally got underway in a Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday after a delay of more than a year caused by the coronavirus pandemic.