CHICAGO, IL—On Thursday, December 9, actor Jussie Smollett was found guilty on five of six counts concluding his phony hate crime trial.
On January 29, 2019, Smollett claimed that he was attacked by “two White men” around 2:45 a.m. when he was on his way back to his Chicago apartment because of his skin color and sexual orientation. He said the two attackers confronted him near his home while shouting, “This is MAGA country” while they assaulted him, screaming racial slurs. He also claimed that during the alleged attack, one of them forced a noose around his neck and poured bleach on his clothing.
The prosecutor, Dann Webb worked on the case for four months compiling evidence that suggested Smollett made the entire scene up and presented it to the jury. Smollett planned a fake hate crime with two paid men, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo who he had relations with prior to their planned meeting. He found that Smollett’s consistent lying was an “insult to the jury’s intelligence.”
He was found guilty on five out six low-level felony accounts including telling a police officer he was the victim of a hate crime and battery. He was found guilty for telling a detective he was a hate crime victim and battery victim and then reiterating again that he was battery victim. He was found not guilty on a sixth charge of telling another detective he was a battery victim weeks after the “attack.”
The defense highlighted that Smollett withheld his cellphone data, medical information, deceived police about the attackers’ identification, tampered with evidence, lied about who attacked him along with the injuries that they gave him, and that Smollett never signed off on a criminal complaint against the two brothers.
Webb told reporters during a press conference following the verdict that the Chicago Police Department testified that they worked very hard on this case. He said, “twenty-six police officers spent about 3,000 hours of time investigating this case costing over 100,000 dollars for a fake crime that denigrates what a real hate crime is.”
Following the jury’s verdict, Smollett’s attorney, Nenye Uche said, “We feel 100 percent confident that this case will be won on appeal.”
