Jussie Smollett’s bail has been set at $100,000 after he was arrested and charged with faking his own assault.
The Empire actor must also surrender his passport, per the terms laid out in court on Thursday.
Smollett appeared at his bond hearing in the afternoon, looking “stone-faced”, according to CNN.
He didn’t say much besides giving his name. Some of his family members were in the courtroom.
Smollett’s attorney asked Cook County Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr to release Smollett on his own recognisance. However, the judge said that would be inappropriate and that he was particularly bothered by the allegations involving the rope placed around Smollett’s neck.
Police allege that Smollett hired two brothers to help stage an attack on him late last month in downtown Chicago.
Smollett turned himself in Thursday to face accusations that he filed a false police report last month when he told authorities he was attacked in downtown Chicago by two men who hurled racist and anti-gay slurs and looped a rope around his neck, police said.
Police treated Smollett as a victim until two brothers they had taken into custody for questioning last week admitted to helping him stage the attack, Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson said.
It was the brothers who also explained Smollett’s alleged motive to detectives. Authorities have a check for $3,500 that Smollett paid the brothers, according to Johnson.
In a statement on Wednesday, attorneys Todd Pugh and Victor Henderson said Smollett “enjoys the presumption of innocence, particularly when there has been an investigation like this one where information, both true and false, has been repeatedly leaked”.
Additional reporting by agencies.
