CHICAGO _ Chicago police detectives who reviewed phone and financial records in the Jussie Smollett investigation found the "Empire" actor discussed drug deals with one of two brothers who later claimed to have helped him stage a hate crime.
"N _ _ _ you got a molly connect," Smollett said in a text exchange with one of the brothers in September 2018, referring to the popular club drug ecstasy.
"Imma need a good fo pills Haha," Smollett later said before one of the brothers minutes later replied, "Oh yeah? Got you?"
Smollett and the two brothers have not been accused of any drug crimes.
A review of Smollett's phone records show the actor would request that one of the brothers, whose name is redacted in the reports, supply him with "weed, molly or "Whitney," which is slang for cocaine, the reports show.
In one text exchange on July 1, 2018, Smollett and one of the brothers exchanged texts on how the actor could obtain "Whitney" and how to pay for it.
Payment was arranged through Venmo, an online payment program and Smollett later sent a follow-up text stating he just sent $200, according to the reports.
In a September 2018 text exchange, Smollett talked to one of the brothers about buying ecstasy.
"N _ _ _ you still got a molly connect?" Smollett wrote to one of the brothers.
"Imma need a good fo pills Haha," Smollett later said.
"Oh yeah? Got you?" one of the brothers replied.
A detective noted that little more than an hour after this text exchange, there was Venmo activity from either Smollett or the brother.
Later in the night, the brother asked Smollett, "What do you want to do?"
"I'm gonna stay at my house. You wanna come through? If not I can get it tomorrow?" Smollett said.
"I'm gonna stay at my house. You can get it tomorrow," the brother replied.
A detective wrote in the reports that on "multiple occasions" Smollett appeared to have disguised "illicit activity" in his Venmo activity by describing it as "payments for legitimate expenses."
For example, in the September 2018 text exchange in which police concluded Smollett was buying drugs from one of the brothers, the actor described the purchase in his Venmo payment as "training."
The text exchange was buried in hundreds of pages of police reports released Thursday in the investigation of Smollett, revealing more detail in a case that has only grown in controversy since Cook County prosecutors dropped all charges against the actor alleging he falsely reported being the victim of a hate crime.
The documents were released after last week's ruling by a Cook County judge lifting the seal on Smollett's court records. Smollett's attorneys got his file sealed during the same surprise hearing in March in which prosecutors dropped all charges that he staged a phony hate crime attack on himself.
Police and prosecutors, citing the seal, declined to release dozens if not hundreds of documents that otherwise would be subject to public-records requests.
However, Judge Steven Watkins last week ordered the records unsealed, saying the actor could not claim concern over his privacy after he and his attorneys repeatedly went before news cameras to proclaim his innocence.
Prosecutors are also expected to release several internal documents in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the legal drama surrounding Smollett's case continues unabated. A retired appellate judge has mounted an aggressive effort to appoint a special prosecutor to look into prosecutors' handling of the case. The city of Chicago has sued the actor for the cost of overtime investigators spent looking into his allegedly false report. And the county inspector general is investigating the matter, at the request of Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx.
Smollett, who is black and openly gay, reported in late January being the victim of an attack by two people shouting racist and homophobic slurs.
But he was charged after Chicago police determined that Smollett had agreed to pay $3,500 to brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, whom he knew previously, to stage the attack.
Foxx has faced fierce criticism over her office's abrupt dismissal of the charges, including calls for her resignation by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.
