A year after all charges against him in an allegedly faked hate crime attack were dropped, Jussie Smollett — and the eyes of a divided nation — returned Monday morning to a Chicago courthouse.
The former “Empire” actor walked into the packed courtroom of Chief Cook County Criminal Courts Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. Monday morning as he faced a prosecution team led by former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb and pleaded not guilty to a new, six-count indictment charging him with falsely reporting he was the victim of a hate-crime attack near his Streeterville apartment on a frigid night in January 2019.
Martin assigned Smollett’s case to Judge James Linn, a former prosecutor. Most recently, Linn presided over the 2019 murder trial of Alexander Villa, who was convicted of killing off-duty Chicago Police Officer Clifton Lewis while he worked as a security guard at an Austin convenience store.
Linn is getting a case filled with twists and turns.
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Smollett’s image took a blow in the months that followed making his report to police officers, as a police investigation determined that Smollett hired two acquaintances to stage the assault. Smollett was booked into the Cook County Jail almost exactly a year from Monday, posting his $100,000 bond that afternoon.
A month later, all charges against Smollett were dropped in a controversial move by prosecutors that became subject of national debate — and, eventually, an independent investigation by Webb. Smollett was written out of his role on “Empire,” and State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s bid for a second term as Cook County’s top prosecutor became more about her handling of Smollett’s case than about the reform platform she has sought to enact.
With the primary next month, Foxx faces a field of four challengers for the Democratic nomination, and two Republicans also are running to face her in the general election.
Smollett also faces a lawsuit in federal court, where the city of Chicago is seeking to recover the $130,000 spent investigating the case. His Los Angeles- and New York-based attorneys, Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian, face a defamation suit filed by the the two brothers who claim to have been hired by Smollett to fake the attack.
After a retired judge petitioned the courts to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate both Smollett’s claims of having been attacked and how prosecutors handled his case, Judge Michael Toomin appointed Webb to lead the probe in August. After a six-month investigation, Webb two weeks ago announced charges against Smollett and said an investigation into the decision to drop the 2019 indictment still was ongoing.
Smollett again faces felony charges of disorderly conduct for making false statements about the attack to police and detectives, counts that rank among the lowest-level felony charges in Illinois law. Smollett, who lives in New York and Los Angeles, is all but certain this time to receive bond and remain free as he awaits trial.
Smollett and his entourage were met with a phalanx of cameras from media outlets from around the city and the globe as he came into the courthouse Monday morning.
The actor and his attorneys have steadfastly maintained his innocence, blaming the charges on a police investigation that quickly focused on the actor and overlooked witnesses who saw at least one other man leaving the area of the attack around the time Smollett said he struggled with two white men who hit him, looped a thin rope noose around his neck and poured bleach on him after taunting him with racist, homophobic remarks.
Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, musclebound brothers who had worked as extras on “Empire” and had served as personal trainers for Smollett, claim that Smollett planned the attack and paid them $3,500 to carry it out. Smollett claims that if the attack was a hoax, it was one that he had no involvement in plotting, and that the $3,500 check made out to Abimbola around the time of the attack was for his services as a trainer, and that a string of cryptic emails between the two men was related to illegal drug purchases.
In an unusual move, the brothers arrived in the courtroom Monday morning to watch Smollett’s court appearance. “The brothers are sorry for their involvement and they’re going to do whatever they can,” their attorney Gloria Schmidt said.
After Smollett’s attorneys briefly addressed a scrum of reporters, the actor walking at the center of a crowd of family and supporters that blocked him from cameras, left the building
Webb declined comment.
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