Jussie Smollett’s Lawyers Ask Illinois Supreme Court to Overturn Hoax Hate Crime Guilty Verdict

More than five years after Jussie Smollett staged a phony hate crime against himself, and nearly three years since his conviction by a Chicago jury, lawyers for the former Empire actor are asking the Illinois supreme court to overturn the guilty verdict.

Defense attorney Nenye Uche argued on Tuesday that Smollett’s case should never have gone to trial because the actor had already entered into a binding agreement with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office not to prosecute him in exchange for him voluntarily agreeing to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service, according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Uche asked the justices to send the case back to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing to determine if a contractual non-prosecution deal had been reached.

Special prosecutors countered that the deal had been honored when the original case was dropped and prosecutors in state attorney Kim Foxx’s office declined to pursue charges, according to the paper. But special prosecutor Sean Weiber said that because the case wasn’t dismissed “with prejudice,” it didn’t preclude prosecutors from refiling charges. He cited  “40 years of legal precedent” that Smollett’s experienced legal team knew of.

Uche noted that Smollett “isn’t an attorney” and said prosecutors “should not hide behind technicalities,” according to the Sun-Times.

Weiber called for the justices to bring the case to an end, noting that it’s been over 2,000 days since Smollett staged the hate crime and then falsely reported it to police. It was January 29, 2019, when Smollett, who is black and openly gay, alleged that two attackers — at least one of them white — jumped him out of the blue around 2 a.m., used racist and homophobic slurs, doused him with bleach, hung a noose around his neck, and yelled that Chicago “is MAGA country,” a reference to then-president Donald Trump’s slogan.

Chicago police spent more than 3,000 hours investigating Smollett’s allegation. They eventually determined that the attack was a hoax, and that Smollett had conspired with two brothers, black extras on Empire, to stage the attack.

Prosecutors argued that Smollett was seeking publicity for his fledgling music career and because he was unhappy with his pay on Empire.

In December 2021, a jury found Smollett guilty of fix felony disorderly conduct charges in connection with making false reports to police. Special prosecutor Dan Webb said at the time that the verdict was a “resounding message by the jury.” He accused Smollett of lying to the jury for “hours and hours and hours” and spinning a “completely ridiculous story.”

In March 2022, Smollett was sentenced to five months in an Illinois jail followed by 30 months of probation. But Smollett was released after less than a week pending his appeal of the conviction.

Last December, an Illinois appeals court upheld the conviction in a 2-1 ruling.