Jussie Smollett arrives at court to be sentenced for lying to police about hoax race hate attack

Jussie Smollett is in court awaiting sentencing for lying to police by claiming he was attacked by two white Trump supporters in January 2019 when he had hired two black friends to rough him up in an alleged attempt to raise his celebrity profile.  

The actor, 39, faces three years behind bars on five, felony four counts of disorderly conduct. He was convicted in December.  On Thursday, he showed up with a large entourage of family members ten minutes after his sentencing hearing was due to begin. 

His attorneys made an 11th hour appeal to the judge to have his conviction thrown out, arguing that Smollett did not get a fair trial because of the intense media coverage, police prejudice and even claiming the judge unfairly selected jurors. 

Their motion was dismissed by a frustrated Judge James Linn who said there was ‘nothing unconstitutional’ about Smollett’s trial. 

‘We have been talking about this for two years now… I do believe at the end of the day, Mr. Smollett received a fair trial and was proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt by the jury,’ he said.  

On January 29, 2019, Smollett claimed he was attacked by two white thugs wearing red hats who called him a ‘f****t’ and the N-word at around 2am as he walked home from collecting a sandwich from Subway. 

He was initially hesitant to talk to police about it, refused to hand over his cell phone for weeks and then launched a narrative that he was targeted because he is a black gay man. He went on Good Morning America and performed music shows where he spoke proudly of ‘fighting back’. 

At trial, a jury ruled that none of it was true and that he had in fact hired his two black friends, Abel and Ola Osundairo – a pair of brothers with Nigerian heritage- to stage the attack as a way of raising his celebrity profile.   

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Prosecutors told how he never intended for the stunt to be reported to police and that he simply wanted to get attention and possibly a raise from Empire, the show he was acting in. 

Smollett maintained his innocence and still does. 

At today’s sentencing hearing, members of his family are expected to ask the judge to spare him jail. 

His 92-year-old grandmother Molly is expected to speak, as is his older brother Joel,  musical director Rich Daniels, a friend who says he ‘loves Jussie like a brother’, and Sharon Gelman, Former Executive Director, Artists for a New South Africa.  

Before the sentence was handed down, Smollett’s attorney Tina Glandian asked for the verdict to be thrown out. 

She claimed the entire trial should never have happened, that he was the victim of a prejudiced media and jury, and that he had been promised by the State of Illinois that he would not be charged. Glandian also accused Judge James Linn of being unfair in his jury selection – something he angrily shot down. 

Prosecutors said Smollett had tried to blame someone else for the verdict at every turn.   

‘He’ blamed the prosecutors, the courtroom staff, the sheriffs, the entire cook county judicial system, he’s blamed COVID-19, he’s blamed the media, he’s blamed ‘political figures’, witnesses at trial and he has even blamed the jury itself,’ prosecutor Sean Wieber said. 

‘It cannot be said with a straight face that we didn’t meet our burden to find him guilty.’  

Glandian argued that Smollett should never have been charged again in February 2020, a year after the first set of charges against him were dropped, and that he had been granted immunity from the state of Illinois as part of the first deal where he served 15 hours of community service and forfeited $10,000. 

She also accused Judge James Linn of not selecting the jury fairly because he did not ask all of the questions they wanted him to during jury selection. He shot back at her on Thursday, saying: ‘I picked the jury the same way I would in a murder case. I absolutely treated him the same as everybody else.’ 

Judge Linn told the court that Smollett’s attorneys wanted him to ask prospective jurors ‘what kind of animal they would want to be’, which they deemed to be a ‘critical question’. 

‘I asked most of the questions the defense requested of me. You wanted me to ask what kind of animal do you want to be?

‘Did you really think I was going to ask those type of questions?’ Judge Linn said. 

At the sentencing hearing on Friday, prosecutors reminded the court how Smollett had described the brothers as white or light-skinned. 

‘I think we can both agree it has been established that they are not white,’ deputy special prosecutor Sam Mendenhall said. ‘Facts matter, truth matters,’ he added. 

Judge Linn also slammed Smollett’s team for claiming not enough of his family and friends were in the court. 

He revealed that under COVID restrictions, he was told he could only allow 57 people in the courtroom at all times, including the 12 jurors, himself and both legal sides. 

Smollett’s team asked for 47 seats. 

The actor’s attorney also argued that it was unfair for him to have been charged when the brothers never were. 

Judge Linn pointed out that the brothers did not engage in any kind of crime because they only did what Smollett asked them to do, whereas he lied to police. 

‘We have to remember why we are here: Mr. Smollett was indicted for filing a false police report. Everything about what happened between he and the brothers – the scheme to beat him up – none of that is a crime. Because he was not only consenting to it, he was orchestrating it. You couldn’t find the brothers guilty of a crime.

‘The only crime was reporting it to police.  The brothers had nothing to do with that. I just want to put that to rest,’ he said. 

Smollett’s team says the judge has received 80 letters in support of him, asking for an alternative sentence. 

They say that the letters point out how Smollett has reason to fear for his safety in prison as a ‘gay, black Jewish man’.  

The long legal saga finally draws to a close today, more than three years after it began. 

Since the beginning, the case against Smollett has ignited debate and enraged many in the worlds of showbiz, politics and civil rights. 

Smollett was arrested in February 2019, then the charges against him were suddenly dropped after a suspicious investigation by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office, who Smollett had been in touch with in the early days of the case. 

A special prosecutor brought fresh charged against him.  

Before sentencing on Thursday, his legal team submitted letters to the judge from black rights organizations asking for leniency. 

One was written by the president of the NAACP who claimed Smollett had been subjected to an unfair amount of scrutiny and attention. 

‘It would be an understatement to say that an inordinate amount of attention has been given to Mr. Smollett’s case. 

‘This case involves no drugs, no theft, no sex, no property damage, and no physical injury to anyone other than the defendant. 

‘Despite the attention paid to it by the media, at its heart, this case involves a low-level, non-violent offense. 

‘We urge the Court to keep this truth in mind when sentencing Mr. Smollet,’ Derrick Johnson wrote. 

Another letter was submitted by Black Lives Matter-Grassroots Director Melina Abdullah. 

‘Black Lives Matter stands in strong support of an alternative-to-incarceration sentence for Jussie Smollett,’ their letter read.

It details all of the financial contributions Smollett has made to civil rights organizations and his commitment to the community.  

The brothers testified at trial how Smollett paid them to carry out the attack, how he rehearsed it with them and how they came to know him beforehand.  

Smollett’s defense was that they were lying throughout. 

His attorney offered several motives for the lying. Smollett himself claimed he and Abel Osundairo had visited bathhouses together where they ‘made out’. 

Abel said that never happened, but that neither he nor his brother were homophobic – as Smollett’s attorneys had suggested. 

They showed the jury photos of them handing out condoms at a Pride parade to prove they had no prejudice against gay men. 

The brothers said they did not want to necessarily harm Smollett, but that they wanted to tell the truth. 

Smollett’s lies enraged Chicago Police Chief Eddie Johnson, who was in charge of the force at the time but is not anymore, and former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. 

After today’s hearing, Smollett’s attorney Nenya Uche is scheduled to make a brief statement but he will not be asked to.