Jussie Smollett Found Guilty of Reporting a Fake Hate Crime

A jury in Chicago found the actor Jussie Smollett guilty on Thursday of falsely reporting to the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic assault in 2019, an attack that investigators concluded was a hoax directed by the actor himself. With its finding, after more than nine hours of deliberation, the 12-person jury indicated it had chosen to believe the accounts of two brothers who testified that Mr. Smollett had asked them to mildly injure him as part of a publicity stunt. Mr. Smollett, wearing a dark gray suit and a blue shirt, sat upright in his chair, hands clasped, staring directly at the jury just after the verdict was read. Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, said afterward that Mr. Smollett only made matters worse by continuing to stand by his account at trial.“This jury worked so hard, ” Mr. Webb said, “and for Mr. Smollett to come up before them and lie for hours and hours and hours — that really compounded his misconduct. ”The case dated back to the frigid early hours of Jan. 29, 2019, when Mr. Smollett — known then for his role in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire” — told the police he had been the victim of a hate crime near his apartment building in Chicago. Mr. Smollett said one of his attackers had even yelled, “This is MAGA country. ”His account captured the attention of a politically polarized nation concerned with rising hate crime reports and the persistent threat of racism. But public support for Mr. Smollett quickly evaporated when investigators came to the conclusion three weeks later that he had staged the attack on himself. Chicago officials, upset at the amount of police work that was spent on the case, have sued Mr. Smollett to recoup some of the city’s costs. They were similarly critical in 2019 when the office of the city’s top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, who early on had recused herself from the case, citing a potential conflict, quietly dropped the charges in exchange for Mr. Smollett’s agreement to forfeit his $10, 000 bond and perform community service. The case was later revived by Mr. Webb, who reviewed that decision and ultimately announced that a grand jury had charged Mr. Smollett with six counts of felony disorderly conduct. Smollett was convicted on five counts on Thursday, relating to conversations he had with the police just after the attack. He was acquitted on the sixth count, which related to a follow-up conversation with an investigator two weeks later. The actor faces up to three years in prison. The judge did not set a sentencing date and released him on bond. His defense team said Mr. Smollett would appeal.“We remain confident that we’re going to come back and he’s going to be vindicated, ” said Nenye Uche, one of the actor’s lawyers. Prosecutors argued in court that Mr. All data is taken from the source: http://nytimes.com Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/ar... #smollett #newslatest #bbcworldnewstoday #newsworldnow #newstodayinusa #newstodayfox #