Jussie Smollett, City of Chicago end hate crime hoax case with settlement
A high-profile legal case that garnered national attention and reached the Illinois Supreme Court appears to be resolved. NBC Chicago reports actor Jussie Smollett and the city of Chicago have reached a settlement in the civil lawsuit filed against him, marking the end of a six-year legal battle that began with a police report and ended with police calling it a hoax.
Jussie Smollett accused of staging attack in 2019
In January 2019, Smollett reported to police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in a Chicago neighborhood. He described the incident as a hate crime. After an investigation, police and city officials said Smollett staged the attack, selected the men involved and orchestrated the plan in advance.
The city sued him for $130,000, claiming his report caused law enforcement to use resources and led to the arrest of two brothers, Ola and Abimbola Osundairo. Smollett denied the allegations and filed a countersuit, maintaining the attack was real.
Smollett was arrested and charged with staging the crime, and a Chicago jury later indicted him on 16 counts. Initially, he was set to complete community service instead of facing prosecution, meaning the charges were being dropped. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called it a “whitewash of justice” because of the agreement between Smollett and prosecutors to avoid serious punishment. Following public backlash, a special prosecutor was assigned to the case, who later brought it to trial.
Smollett continued to claim he was innocent and the attack wasn’t planned, including during testimony from the two brothers who said they were paid to fake the assault. Smollett was convicted in 2021 on five felony counts of disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation, fined $25,000 and ordered to repay the city with more than $120,000 in restitution.
Illinois Supreme Court overturn conviction
Two years later, in 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction, ruling that Smollett had previously reached a non-prosecution agreement with Cook County prosecutors and should not have been charged again. In its unanimous decision, the justices said it would be more unjust than a resolved case than “a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.”
The justices said their ruling didn’t negate Smollett’s guilt but rather the lack of due process he faced during the proceedings. Special Prosecutor Dan Webb issued a statement following the ruling.
“Make no mistake—today’s ruling has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence,” he said. “The Illinois Supreme Court did not find any error with the overwhelming evidence presented at trial that Mr. Smollett orchestrated a fake hate crime and reported it to the Chicago Police Department as a real hate crime, or the jury’s unanimous verdict that Mr. Smollett was guilty of five counts of felony disorderly conduct. In fact, Mr. Smollett did not even challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against him in his appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.”
Terms of the new settlement have not been publicly disclosed due to being finalized outside of court.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
