R. Kelly’s executive assistant, Diana Copeland, was called by the prosecution to the witness stand in the Chicago artist’s sex trafficking and racketeering case in a Brooklyn federal court.
However, it was her testimony during a Good MorningAmerica/ABC News story that is the most bizarre and damning.
In efforts to exempt herself from R. Kelly’s alleged abuse, she stated that she did “nothing wrong” while she worked for the superstar.
In fact, she said that if she had to do it all again, she would not do anything differently.
Copeland assisted the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer for over 16 years and part of the reason that she would do nothing differently is because she stayed out of his personal affairs.
“My job stops at the threshold of his bedroom door,” she said.
She did note, as testified by over 20 different witnesses, that Kelly had a lot of “girlfriends” and very strict “rules” that limited their movement and engagement. Despite this, she never thought anything was wrong with this or that there were nefarious or illegal activities going on right under her nose.
Another thing she maintained is that no one was trapped in his house to her knowledge and that she did not recruit women or girls for her boss. She also alleged that out of the almost two decades she worked for him, she never knew of any of his girlfriends to be under 18.
With that said, under oath, she did tell the court that a few years before his arrest, that Kelly asked her why she had allowed one of his girlfriends ‘escape’ from his apartment.
She further stated that he was such a control freak that if she ordered an Uber for one of the women, and there was a male driver, she was to decline it and get another one. He did not want the women to make eye contact with men other than himself.
In fact, one of these strict rules that limited their engagement with men and that she enforced, is that in elevators they had to face the wall. One time on an elevator, a girl was facing the wall and she accidentally got off without the girl knowing.
Still, Copeland maintains, she never saw anything wrong with what she did.
