Lisa Van Allen, 27, the last witness before prosecutors rested their case, also told jurors in more than three hours of graphic and dramatic testimony that Kelly last year offered her $250,000 to recover a tape of one of the trysts.

During cross-examination, a defense attorney accused Van Allen of plotting to extort money from the singer, a claim she denied. Under further questioning she admitted she once stole Kelly’s $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.

“Van Allen is an admitted thief and liar who wouldn’t know the truth if she tripped over it,” Kelly’s business manager, Derrel McDavid, said in a statement.

Kelly, 41, faces as many as 15 years in prison if convicted of child pornography on suspicion of videotaping himself having sex with a female prosecutors say was as young as 13. He has pleaded not guilty and both he and the alleged victim, now 23, deny being on the video — which is separate from those Van Allen testified to being on.

The state, which called more than a dozen witnesses over two weeks, rested its case after Van Allen’s testimony. Jurors will get Tuesday off before the defense begins its presentation on Wednesday.

Van Allen told jurors Monday she first had sex with Kelly and the alleged victim in 1998. Kelly would have been around 30 years old at the time, Van Allen about 18 and the alleged victim would have been 14, according to prosecutors’ estimates.

Van Allen said Kelly told her at the time that the alleged victim was 16. The age of legal consent in Illinois is 17.

The three-way sex took place in the same home on Chicago’s North Side where prosecutors say the sex tape at the center of the case was made, Van Allen told jurors.

She said she began crying during a second sexual encounter in 1999 with Kelly and the alleged victim, causing an upset Kelly to pick up the video camera and leave the room. She said that encounter took place at the house’s basketball court.

“I started crying … because I didn’t want to do it,” Van Allen testified. She said Kelly complained that her crying ruined the footage and that he never kept tapes during which she cried.

A final three-way encounter took place in a trailer during a video shoot in Chicago in 2000, Van Allen said. When someone came to the trailer door, the alleged victim “had to run into the bathroom naked” because Kelly did not want others to see her there, she told jurors.

Several months pregnant, Van Allen, from Georgia, initially appeared relaxed on the witness stand and smiled frequently. But she wept when she discussed the second alleged encounter. Prosecutors paused for two minutes as she dabbed tears from her face and regained her composure.

Kelly looked on from across the room as Van Allen testified, at least once appearing to shake his head and other times leaning into the defense table, staring at his folded hands.

Van Allen told jurors that Kelly offered her $250,000 last year to recover a tape of one of the encounters with the alleged victim. She said acquaintances of hers took the tape from Kansas City to a Chicago hotel, where it was handed over to a Kelly associate who paid $20,000 in cash.

Van Allen portrayed Kelly as obsessed with videotaping his sexual exploits, testifying that he even carried around a duffel bag with his homemade sex tapes in it.

“He carried it everywhere with him,” she said. “Wherever he was at, the bag would follow him.”

Van Allen said she first met Kelly at the making of a music video in Georgia about 10 years ago. She later appeared in several Kelly music videos, including one for the song “I Wish,” in which she braids the singer’s hair.

During a 1998 Kelly concert tour, Van Allen said, she simulated sex with the singer in front of the audience.

“You didn’t cry then, did you?” asked defense attorney Sam Adam Sr., who repeatedly suggested Van Allen’s tears in court were disingenuous.

Before Van Allen took the stand, Judge Vincent Gaughan advised that she had been appointed an attorney, saying some of her testimony might be “self-incriminating.” She was granted immunity by prosecutors.

Van Allen said she approached prosecutors about testifying in the case only several months ago — six years after Kelly was charged.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she explained to jurors.

But Adam said Van Allen had ulterior motives when she contacted prosecutors in March, including to help get a reduced sentence in a weapons case for a man she lives with.

Adam also noted that Van Allen told prosecutors only Monday that she stole Kelly’s watch in 2001.

“So the spirit didn’t move you to do the right thing, this, until today?” Adam asked. He pointed across the courtroom at Kelly. “You tried to extort that man over there,” he said.

Van Allen denied the accusation, saying Kelly asked her in 2007 whether she could hand over the tape of one of their three-way encounters.

Asked whether she knew of any other copies of that tape, Van Allen gestured at Kelly across the room, referring to him by his birth name.

“Robert would know,” she said.

Source: Yahoo OMG!

They might be tight-lipped about their wedding but public record confirms Beyonce and Jay-Z did indeed get married. The superstar couple had filed their signed wedding license Friday in Scarsdale.

People magazine reports that according to Town Clerk Donna Conkling, the license, which lists the wedding date as April 4, was received on Friday afternoon. The “Crazy In Love” singers applied for the license three days before the event itself.

Conkling also says that although their license was filed more than five days after the wedding, it’s expected to be processed with the state without penalty as the penalty is frequently waived.

The much-talked about, but never confirmed, wedding was attended by friends and family of the couple, including her parents Tina and Matthew Knowles, sister Solange, and Destiny’s Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

Source: allheadlinenews

Could their happiness be because the longtime couple is finally putting the constant wedding and split rumors to rest? Although a rep for Beyoncé, 26, had no comment and a rep for Jay-Z, 38, could not be reached, the courthouse trip is the first real indication that the pair – who first started dating in 2002 – will walk down the aisle.

Rumors of a wedding have long followed the couple, and Beyoncé has admitted to thinking about how it would happen. “I don’t know when I’ll want to get married,” she told Cosmopolitan in January 2006. “I never pictured myself as a bride, but after my sister’s wedding, I did start thinking about what kind of wedding I’d want. I don’t think I want a big one.”

A year later, she told InStyle, “Maybe me and my man will go away to an island; maybe we’ll go to a church. I have no idea.”

Source: People

Juvenile, a 32-year-old whose real name is Terius Gray, was arrested on misdemeanor marijuana possession after he was stopped on Interstate 20 near Meridian, Lauderdale County Sheriff William Sollie said.

“A small amount of marijuana was seized and he was placed under arrest,” Sollie said.

Juvenile, who lives in New Orleans, was released later Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney, and a woman who answered the telephone at a listing for a T. Gray declined to confirm that it was the rapper’s residence.

The rapper, best known for the song “Back That Thing Up,” was headed from Atlanta to New Orleans when his car was pulled over, Sollie said. At least one other person was in the car, but no one else was charged, he said.

Juvenile has been arrested at least four times on charges ranging from failure to pay child support to resisting an officer in a scuffle at a Florida mall in 1999. Most of the charges have been dismissed.

In 2003, he pleaded guilty to felony battery and was sentenced to 75 hours of community service for hitting a man on the head with a champagne bottle.

Still, medical experts say that use of steroids and human growth hormone — an estimated $10 billion-a-year operation worldwide — reaching into the entertainment industry illustrates how pervasive steroids use in the United States has become. It is not unique to athletics, where performance-enhancing drug use has marred many sports. For many celebrities, the lure of hormonal drugs is their supposed, unproven anti-aging effects.

While Congress is preparing to focus on baseball players alleged to have taken the drugs, medical experts are warning that steroids and human growth hormone are being illegally prescribed nationwide at an alarming rate under the misconception they will aid healing, enhance looks, strength and speed, or slow aging.

Records shared with the Times Union and information from several cooperating witnesses on Long Island indicate Blige and other stars were shipped prescribed human growth hormone or steroids — sometimes under fictitious names — at hotels, production studios, private residences, an upscale Manhattan fitness club and through the Long Island office of Michael Diamond, a chiropractor affiliated with the celebrities, sources said.

Diamond, who has not been identified as a target in the case or accused of breaking any laws, helps run an anti-aging program at Clay Gym in Manhattan, according to the company’s Web site.

The Albany investigation became a nationwide spectacle last February when authorities raided a Palm Beach County wellness center and the offices of Signature Compounding Pharmacy in downtown Orlando. The wellness center’s owners and the pharmacy’s operators are awaiting trial in Albany on charges related to the sale of millions of dollars worth of prescription drugs, mostly steroids, through a suspected criminal enterprise involving allegedly corrupt physicians and a series of anti-aging “clinics” that advertised predominantly through the Internet.

In the past year the case has netted 10 guilty pleas, including felony convictions of three physicians and several operators of anti-aging clinics in Texas, Florida and New York.

Along the way it has exposed allegations of steroid use by Major League Baseball players, pro wrestlers, NFL figures, police officers, prison guards, top-ranked body builders, people with ties to high school and college wrestling programs, and now, celebrities.

In a brief interview at his Patchtogue office Friday, Diamond said patient privacy laws prohibit him from discussing the stars he has treated or why.

“I don’t have anything to do with athletes, I don’t do athletes,” Diamond said. “Anyone that wants to publicly state that they work with me can do so, it’s just I’m not allowed legally to state who I treat or who I don’t treat.”

Still, it appears evident Diamond caters to famous clients as evidenced by the many stars, including Steven Seagal, whose photographs — some autographed to Diamond — adorn his office’s walls.

“Because of this recent development as far as what I found out was going on with (Signature) pharmacy I was approached and I was … told not to discuss anything right now … because there’s investigations going on,” Diamond said, not elaborating.

Diamond said he had previously met officials from Signature pharmacy at anti-aging conventions, but that he learned of the year-old criminal case only recently.

Entertainers using steroids is not new. Last year, Hollywood action-film stalwart Sylvester Stallone paid a $2,975 fine in Australia to settle criminal charges he illegally possessed vials of steroids and human growth hormone discovered during a customs inspection of his luggage.

Stallone, 61, said he needed the drugs to treat his body for a slowdown of his pituitary gland production of growth hormone and for the grueling training he’s done over the years making films, according to the Australian Associated Press. But taking the substances in an effort to slow aging or promote healing, which is an unproven claim, is not an allowable reason for a physician to prescribe steroids or growth hormone.

Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, an epidemiologist and co-author of a report on growth hormone published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said celebrities identified as customers is not surprising.

“In the end the story is less about the entertainers and the athletes and more about the people who are providing them with the drugs,” Olshansky said. “They can’t get those drugs without somebody with a degree giving it to them.”

Still, big names draw interest, including in Congress, where hearings are set to begin this week on a report issued last month by former Sen. George Mitchell that exposed widespread steroids abuse in professional baseball.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is pushing a bill that would make human growth hormone a controlled substance, like anabolic steroids. Human growth hormone currently is not a controlled substance under federal law, which means it is not a crime to possess the drug and the federal government has minimal control over its production and distribution, Schumer said.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares declined to confirm information about, or to comment on, celebrities named in this report.

Soares said his decision more than two years ago to pursue the case was less about exposing the drug use of athletes or celebrities and more about dismantling a drug pipeline that has funneled millions of dollars in steroids and other drugs into New York. The state has some of the strictest prescription laws in the country and prosecutors said it’s unlawful here for a physician, even from another state, to prescribe drugs to a New York patient they never examined.

HGH production declines naturally in a person as he or she grows older. Pharmaceutical versions of the hormone cannot be taken orally and must be injected.

Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois’ Chicago School of Public Health, said federal regulations also make it illegal for a physician to prescribe growth hormone to a patient he hasn’t examined. In order to diagnose a patient with growth hormone deficiency, a rare condition affecting about one in 10,000 people, the physician must conduct a time-consuming, expensive test in which hormones are intravenously infused in patients while monitoring their pituitary gland.

“These doctors who are administering growth hormone without ever seeing patients should be in jail,” Olshansky said. “The risks are documented.”

Soares, who is in his inaugural term as district attorney, compares the Internet-fueled industry to the powerful cocaine cartels of the 1980s. He pointed out that Stan and Naomi Loomis, the husband and wife owners of the brick-and-mortar Signature pharmacy, own multimillion dollar properties and a fleet of expensive sports cars and boats.

“They’re living the lifestyle of the Tony Montanas of the ’70s and ’80s because they’re drug dealers,” Soares said, referring to the character made famous by Al Pacino in the movie Scarface. “Our purpose here is more regulation. We want consistency state-to-state and we want tougher regulation over this cyber-economy that right now pretty much anyone with a computer can go out and obtain … things that shouldn’t be obtained without the control or observation of a treating physician.”

Signature’s attorneys have scoffed at the prosecutor’s characterization of their business, claiming no laws were violated because doctors signed the prescriptions they processed.

Dr. Thomas Perls, an internist and associate professor of medicine at Boston University Medical Center, specializes in the study of aging and co-wrote the report on human growth hormone with Olshansky. Perls said industry estimates show that tens of thousands of people nationwide are injecting themselves with steroids and growth hormone, a dangerous drug that he said is routinely and illegally prescribed for anti-aging purposes.

The drug, which is normally used to treat children who suffer rare growth defects, may cause a person to age faster, Perls said. It also can trigger cancer, diabetes, arthritis and other health problems. If someone with cancerous cells takes the drug it’s akin to throwing gas on a fire, Olshansky and Perls both said.

“If you look at the dollar amounts that are trading hands here there has to be thousands of people who are doing this and to call it a public health crisis is right on the money,” Perls said. “The impact is lost a little bit if people think we’re just dealing with a few folks who show up in People magazine.”

According to records reviewed by the Times Union, Blige and the other stars received prescriptions that allegedly were signed by Dr. Gary Brandwein, a South Florida osteopath who has pleaded not guilty in Albany to a felony indictment charging him with various drug-related crimes.

Brandwein, through his attorney, Terence Kindlon, declined comment.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, Diamond was questioned recently by state Health Department investigators because he has done business with Anthony Forgione, a former New York Police Department officer arrested last November on charges of selling steroids through a Delray Beach, Fla., anti-aging clinic, Infinity Longevity.

Brandwein, free on bond since his arrest 10 months ago, drew national attention last summer when it was reported he’d previously prescribed steroids for Chris Benoit, a pro wrestler who murdered his wife and son at their Georgia home before committing suicide. Authorities said Benoit had 10 times the normal levels of testosterone in his body at the time though there’s no evidence steroids played a role.

Source: TimesUnion

“It is with great regret that I must confirm that Chad Butler aka Pimp C, one half of the legendary UGK, was in fact discovered dead this morning,” his publicist, Nancy Byron, said in a statement. “Manager Rick Martin is asking that everyone please respect his family and those close to him at this time and refrain from rumors and innuendo.”

Pimp C, born Chad Butler, was found dead in the Mondrian hotel, a longtime music-industry hangout.

Butler and his partner, Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, were pioneers of Southern rap, and hit the mainstream with their cameo on Jay-Z’s smash “Big Pimpin’.” Though they never enjoyed the pop-chart success of some other rappers, their 1996 CD “Ridin’ Dirty” is considered a rap classic, and their laid-back sound, complete with gangsta tales of creeping through humid streets gripping wood-grain steering wheels, was influential in shaping the Southern rap movement.

The duo’s career was derailed when Butler was jailed for three years in 2002 on gun charges. He released an album while in prison, and this year the group made a comeback with the critically acclaimed album “Underground Kingz,” which included the hit “Int’l Player’s Anthem (I Choose You),” featuring OutKast.

Barry Weiss, CEO of their record label, Jive, said in a statement: “We mourn the unexpected loss of Chad. He was truly a thoughtful and kind-hearted person. He will be remembered for his talent and profound influence as a pioneer in bringing southern rap to the forefront.”

Butler, who grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, came from a musical lineage. His father was a professional trumpet player, and the rapper studied classical music in high school. He even received a Division I rating on a tenor solo at a University Interscholastic League choir competition.

“That’s how I came up listening to everything,” he told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview. “Music don’t have no color or no face. It’s a universal language. I think being exposed to all that kind of stuff influences the way I make records.”

But it was rap music that would become his passion. Together with Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, Butler’s friend since junior high, they started UGK, short for Underground Kingz.

Source: AP

The rapper-producer and fiancée Monique Idlett welcomed a baby girl a few days ago, People reported Tuesday.

“They’re both really happy together,” a source told the magazine. “They’ve known each other for years.”

Timbaland, whose real name is Tim Mosley, has hit the studio with a mind-boggling number of artists ranging from Dr. Dre to Duran Duran to Björk, but the visionary who helped bring “SexyBack” with Justin Timberlake hasn’t had much to say as far as his nonprofessional partnerships go.

Although apparently he doesn’t mind taking a little business home with him—Idlett is also his publicist.

Timbaland reportedly popped the question last month during the couple’s baby shower and they plan to swap vows sometime within the next year. This will be the first marriage for both.

While the 36-year-old Grammy winner’s fingerprints can be found on no fewer than six recently released or upcoming albums, he also put out his third studio album in April, which reads like a who’s who of hip-hop and then some. Among the voices to be found on Timbaland Presents Shock Value are Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, Elton John, Nicole Scherzinger, Dr. Dre, childhood pal Missy Elliott and Nina Simone.

Lately, Timbaland has been occupied helping Madonna put the finishing touches on her next album, due out early next year, and he has also has produced tracks for upcoming efforts from Ashlee Simpson, Mary J. Blige, Elliott and Jennifer Hudson.

The betrothed new dad recently told Scratch magazine that he’s signed on to work with Beyoncé, Usher and Stevie Wonder in the coming months, as well.

Source: E! Entertainment

The cause of death was not released immediately, but she was reportedly in the Los Angeles area when she died.

Kanye West chronicled his mother’s death in “Hey Mama,” a song from his album Late Registration.

In the song, Kanye raps, “(Hey Mama), I wanna scream so loud for you, cuz I’m so proud of you / Let me tell you what I’m about to do, (Hey Mama) / I know I act a fool but, I promise you I’m goin back to school /I appreciate what you allowed for me
I just want you to be proud of me (Hey Mama).”

West eventually performed the song in front of his mother and Oprah Winfrey on the TV host’s highly rated show.

Although she was renown as Kanye West’s mother, Donda West had achieved much on her own.

She served as the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University, but retired to act as Kanye’s manager. She was an English professor for 31 years.

Earlier this year, she released a book called Raising Kanye, which chronicled her journey of raising her son.

In an interview with AllHipHop, Dr. West said she learned from her son and vice versa.

“Looking at Kanye has made me a more courageous individual, and I already saw myself as being courageous. I believe that Kanye has broken through and gone to levels and done things that I haven’t been able to reach yet,” she told AllHipHop.com. “I have 28 years to his senior so I have a lot of experience. I’ve learned to speak my mind regardless of the consequences. I’ve learned a lot having raised Kanye and being his mother.”

The word of Dr. West’s death has traveled fast through word of mouth, in particular her hometown of Chicago.

“’The city of Chicago is hurting for Kanye West and his family. We know how much he loved and valued his mother and we just ask other cities to join us in prayer for Kanye,” said Kendra G, a Morning Show co-host at Power 92 in Chicago

Source: http://allhiphop.com/blogs/news/archive/2007/11/11/18868133.aspx

“I want to never say that again,” the 37-year-old rap mogul says in XXL magazine’s new issue. “Just make the albums, man. And if one day people wake up and it’s four years later, and you haven’t made another, they go, `Wait a minute, you’re retired!’ I think that’s best for me.”

“I think I pulled the retirement ripcord too many times. People looking at me like, `Please shut up.’ I was looking at (his retirement movie) `Fade to Black’ the other day. I was embarrassed. I couldn’t watch. I’m not playing with you. I had to turn it off,” he says. “I was cringing.”

Jay’s new project is an album about his hustling days, inspired by the upcoming film “American Gangster.” That places him in competition with hot rappers of the moment — like Lil Wayne, who after Jay “retired” proclaimed himself the “greatest rapper alive.”

“I think Lil Wayne is extremely talented,” Jay says. “I think he’s one of the most talented ones out there. I mean, even more so how his delivery is than what he says. I don’t think some of the things he says sometimes are the greatest things, but the way he delivers it, that’s part of it.”

“But do I think me and Lil Wayne should be in the same sentence? Me? No,” Jay says. “I mean, hopefully one day. He has to accumulate work. Put some classics under his belt.”

A superstar girlfriend like Beyonce wouldn’t hurt as an equalizer.

“I think people are only interested in (a relationship) three times: When you get together, when you break up, and when you have a baby,” Jay says. “They don’t have good intentions. People just want to manipulate the situation to benefit them. I think relationships are broken up because of the media.”

Source: Yahoo

The agencies at the scene of the federal search warrant include: The ATF, U.S. Marshals: Fugitive Task Force, Fulton County SWAT, Fulton County PD, Dekalb County PD, and the ATF/Atlanta PD Violent Crime Impact Team.

The U.S. Attorney’s office will neither confirm nor deny anything about the investigation.

T.I. currently has a number of projects, including a movie with Denzel Washington set for November release, and he was slated to perform at tonight’s BET Hip-Hop Awards, scheduled to air October 17. The rapper has nine nominations, more than any other artist at the event.

TMZ contacted T.I.’s rep, who had no statement at the time.

Source:  http://www.tmz.com/2007/10/13/rapper-t-i-arrested-in-atlanta/