Jussie Smollett’s hoax conviction overturned by state Supreme Court

The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction for lying about a 2019 hate crime.

Smollett was found guilty in 2021 of faking a racist and homophobic attack and lying to the police. His lawyers said this violated his Fifth Amendment rights because Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx had already agreed in 2019 to drop the charges if Smollett paid $10,000 and did community service. A special prosecutor later charged him again, leading to his trial and conviction.

In its decision, filed Thursday, the court said it resolves an “issue of the state’s responsibility to honor the agreements it enters into with defendants.”

The court stated that it did not find that the state could bring a second prosecution against Smollett after the original charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal and the actor carried out the terms of the plea deal, noting that Illinois case law states that it is ” fundamentally unfair to allow the prosecution to renege on an agreement with a defendant when the defendant has invoked the agreement to his detriment.”

“We are aware that this case has generated considerable public interest and that many people were unhappy with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unfair. Nevertheless, what would be more unfair than the resolution of ​​a single criminal case would be a finding by this court that the state was not bound to honor covenants upon which people have injuriously relied,” it said.

Among the cases cited in the court’s decision is Bill Cosby’s, whose conviction on sexual assault charges was overturned in 2021 by Pennsylvania’s highest court.

Cosby was sentenced in 2018 to three to 10 years in state prison for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. After hearing Cosby’s appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that his prosecution should never have taken place due to a deal, the clip features former Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor, who agreed not to criminally prosecute Cosby if he issued a attachment in a civil suit brought against him by Constand.

While citing the Cosby case, the Illinois Supreme Court said that for the state “to waive a fully executed agreement” after Smollett forfeited a $10,000 bond “would be arbitrary, capricious, fundamentally unjust and a violation of the defendant’s right to due process.”

The Illinois Supreme Court decision overturns earlier decisions by Cook County and the appellate courts. The court has now sent the case back to the lower court to officially dismiss the charges.

A jury convicted him in December 2021 of five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his claims.

He was sentenced to 150 days in county jail, ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago, fined $25,000 and ordered to serve 30 months of probation.

The case began after the openly gay actor told police he was attacked by two men while walking on a street near his Chicago apartment early on January 29, 2019. The attackers allegedly yelled racist and homophobic slurs before hitting him and poured “an unknown chemical substance” on him and wrapped a rope around his neck.

Chicago police said Smollett’s story of being the victim of an attack began to unravel when investigators tracked down two men, brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who they said were seen on security video near where Smollett claimed , that he was assaulted, and around the same time allegedly happened. The Osundairo brothers told police the actor paid them $3,500 to help him orchestrate and stage the crime.

In March 2019, a grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. In a stunning move, Foxx’s office dropped the charges later that month despite acknowledging that Smollet made up the street attack on himself in an effort to get a raise for his role in “Empire.” As part of a deal with prosecutors, Smollett forfeited 10% of a $100,000 bond and completed preventive community service before the charges were dropped.

The case was reopened in June 2019 when a Cook County judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the decision to dismiss all charges against Smollett. The actor was subsequently indicted again in February 2020 on six felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports to police.