Illinois Supreme Court overturns Smollett’s hoax hate crime conviction

Actor Jussie Smollett had his sentencing in 2021 on felony charges related to hoax claims about a hate crime thrown out by the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday. Archive photo by Tannen Maury/EPA-EFE

The initial charges filed by former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx against Smollett, 42, were dropped in 2019 in exchange for him paying a $10,000 fine and performing community service.

But two years later a special prosecutor accused him again in the case, and a jury found him guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct for orchestrating the hate crime by paying two men $3,500 to “attack” him on a Chicago street.

He knew the men from the stage Empire television show in which Smollett starred.

Smollett is black and gay and in one police report filed on Jan. 29, 2019, said two “white supremacists” yelling racial epithets and homophobic slurs while wearing red “MAGA” hats assaulted him and put a noose around his neck in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood, yelling, “This is MAGA country.”

Smollett was briefly hospitalized to treat what he claimed were injuries sustained during the hoax hate crime.

The police investigated the incident, which generated considerable publicity that initially favored Smollett, until the investigation revealed that he had orchestrated the entire event.

The two men who helped Smollett testified against him at the trial.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge James Linn sentenced Smollett to 30 months in prison, ordered him to pay $120,106 in restitution to Chicago and required him to spend the first 150 days of his sentence in the Cook County Jail.

Smollett served six days of his sentence before his lawyers secured his release pending the appeal, which led to the Illinois Supreme Court overturning his conviction on Thursday.

Smollett has always denied that he orchestrated the hate crime.