Chicago police were following a tip Tuesday that Jussie Smollett was seen in an elevator with the two men previously arrested in connection with his reported attack in Streeterville last month.
The person — thought to be a resident or visitor in Smollett’s apartment building — reported Smollett was in the elevator with the two brothers who were subsequently released from police custody.
The tipster told police the three men were seen together the same night that Smollett reported being attacked, according to CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Investigators planned to interview the person Tuesday, and the validity of the tip has not yet been confirmed, Guglielmi said.
The police department has said for weeks Smollett was the victim of a possible hate crime last month in Streeterville, but investigators may now be probing whether Smollett paid two brothers he knew from “Empire” to stage the attack, law enforcement sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Police have been trying to arrange a “follow-up interview” with Smollett, after questioning the brothers, who were taken into custody Wednesday at O’Hare Airport after they got off a return flight from Nigeria. Information from the interview “has, in fact, shifted the trajectory of the investigation,” Guglielmi said Monday.
A law enforcement source told the Sun-Times Tuesday that a grand jury could soon be empaneled to investigate Smollett’s claims.
At the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, the doors to the offices near the grand jury room were shut for most of the afternoon Tuesday,
as reporters camped outside. Around 4 p.m., lawyer Gloria Schmidt, who represents the two brothers, walked out of the offices adjacent to the fourth-floor grand jury room, with a group of what looked
like plain clothes law enforcement officers and uniformed Cook County sheriff’s officers. Schmidt did not answer questions.
Anne Kavanagh, spokesman for Smollett’s attorney, Todd Pugh, did not
respond to requests for comment. The celebrity news site TMZ reported that Smollett had hired high-profile defense lawyer Mark
Geragos, whose recent clients include former NFL quarterback Colin
Kaepernick.
Smollett has told police he was walking in the 300 block of East North Water Street about 2 a.m. Jan. 29 when two men walked up to him, yelled racial and homophobic slurs, hit him in the face, poured a substance — possibly bleach — on him and put a “thin, light rope” around his neck. The incident has been investigated as a hate crime.
Smollett has publicly expressed outrage at speculation that he may have set up the attack, including a lengthy interview with Good Morning America host Robin Roberts during which he called out “haters” who doubted his account of what happened. Smollett has acknowledged that one of the two men interviewed by police had served as his personal trainer.
The actor said he was reluctant to call police immediately after the attack because of the attention it would receive. Smollett’s manager, who said he was on the phone with the actor at the time of the assault, called authorities 40 minutes later. Smollett has since been interviewed by police and turned over redacted records from his cellphone.
Contributing: Andy Grimm
MORE COVERAGE: Jussie Smollett’s reported attack and its investigation
