Actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced Thursday to 150 days in county jail for staging and falsely reporting to police that he was the victim of a hate crime in Chicago. The former “Empire” star, 39, was found guilty on five of six charges of disorderly conduct in December, nearly three years after the incident.
Cook County Judge James Linn also sentenced Smollett to 30 months of felony probation and ordered him to pay $120,106 in restitution to the city of Chicago, as well as a fine of $25,000. While on probation, Linn said, Smollett will be allowed to travel outside of Illinois due to the nature of his job.
Smollett, who declined to speak before receiving his sentence, loudly repeated after the fact that he was “not suicidal” and warned that if anything happens to him in jail, it was not self-inflicted. He repeated he was “not suicidal” while walking out of the courtroom with his fist raised and maintained his innocence in the case.
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While delivering the sentence, Linn noted that “this case received as much attention — and was gone over, every little bit, with a fine-toothed comb — as any case I’ve ever seen before.” He likened the number of pretrial motions filed to that seen with death penalty cases.
Linn also stated that he believed Smollett staged the attack “to make himself more famous.” He accused Smollett of “throwing a national pity party” for himself and said the actor betrayed his more charitable instincts by acting upon the side of him that is “profoundly arrogant and selfish and narcissistic.”
“The damage you’ve done to yourself is way beyond anything else that could happen to you from me or any other judge that could be sentencing you in this criminal case,” Linn said.
Witnesses from both side spoke before Linn during the hours-long hearing. According to the Associated Press, a member of the prosecution read from a statement from Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown describing the city as “a victim of Mr. Smollett’s crime.”
The defense called numerous witnesses, including Smollett’s paternal grandmother, Molly Smollett; his older brother, Joel Smollett Jr.; and Rich Daniels, a music supervisor who worked with him on “Empire.” His attorneys also read letters of support written by a Black Lives Matter organizer; Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP; actors LaTanya and Samuel L. Jackson; and actress Alfre Woodard, who stated she would “fear for [Smollett’s] safety” were he sentenced to prison time.
Special prosecutor Dan Webb did not ask for a specific sentence but requested that Smollett be ordered to pay the city $130,000 in restitution. Defense attorney Nenye Uche argued passionately against any prison time and requested that Smollett’s sentence be limited to community service.
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Before the sentencing, Linn denied a motion from the defense to overturn the guilty verdict.
Share this articleShareIn January 2019, Smollett, who is Black and gay, told Chicago police that he was physically attacked late at night in the city’s Streeterville neighborhood. He said his assailants poured an unknown chemical substance on him, referred to him using racist and homophobic slurs, and yelled, “This is MAGA country,” referring to former president Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.
Smollett received swift support online in the aftermath of the incident, but doubts began to spread as specific details were released. In February 2019, police questioned Smollett’s alleged attackers and announced that the interviews “shifted the trajectory of the investigation.” Police later identified the two people as brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, both of whom had worked on “Empire.”
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Later that month, Smollett was named a suspect in the case and charged with disorderly conduct.
The legal proceedings were tumultuous. A grand jury indicted Smollett that March on 16 felony counts, to which he pleaded not guilty, but prosecutors shocked the public by dropping the charges a few weeks later, citing his lack of a criminal background. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was accused of mishandling the case, and a judge appointed Webb, the special prosecutor, to take over.
Webb decided to prosecute and, in February 2020, Smollett was once again indicted — this time, on six counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. The resulting trial began this past November and at times took on a salacious tone. Smollett’s attorneys argued that Abimbola, Smollett’s personal trainer, tried to exploit the “sexual tension” between them to advance his own acting career. Abimbola denied having a sexual relationship with Smollett while testifying but said that, as the actor’s trainer and occasional drug dealer, he agreed to “fake beat him up” because he “felt indebted to Jussie.”
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Prosecutors zeroed in on money Smollett had paid the Osundairos, including a $100 bill — said to be for the supplies needed to stage the incident — as well as a check for $3,500. Abimbola Osundairo testified that he believed the check was intended as payment to cover for both the attack and a training plan he had devised for Smollett, while Smollett said it was just for the plan.
The jury deliberated for more than nine hours before finding Smollett guilty on five counts. He was acquitted on one, involving an allegation that he had lied to police again at a later date.
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