Jussie ID’d one of his attackers as white: cop

Actor Jussie Smollett was “upset” when police told him an alleged attack on him had not been captured on camera, Chicago Police Detective Kimberly Murray testified Wednesday.

Murray, on the stand during the third day of Smollett’s trial, was the first detective to interview the actor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in late January 2019 after he claimed he was ambushed by two men who allegedly threw a noose around his neck, beat him and yelled racist and homophobic slurs.

Smollett, now 39, told Murray about a racist letter he claimed to have received on the set of “Empire” and a homophobic phone call. But he had not called police, he testified, because he wanted privacy. He also allegedly resisted turning over his phone as part of the investigation.

In the hospital, Murray said Wednesday, Smollett identified at least one of his attackers as white, claiming he could see the bridge of the man’s nose and the skin around his eyes through the assailant’s ski mask.

But two weeks later, after Black brothers Abimbola and Olabingo Osundairo had been arrested, Smollett changed his story and said the attacker had “pale skin” and “acted like he was white by what he said,” Detective Robert Graves testified Wednesday.

“He said, ‘It can’t be them, they’re Black as sin,’ ” Graves told the jury.

The Osundairo brothers, who knew Smollett from “Empire,” told police the actor paid them to attack him, hoping to draw attention and make the studio feel guilty for ignoring alleged hate mail.

Abimbola Osundairo testified Wednesday that Smollett asked him and his brother “to fake beat him up” and instructed them on how to carry out the January 2019 hoax. Smollett planned a “dry run” and gave him a $100 bill to buy supplies for the staged attack, Osundairo said.

He said he and his brother agreed because Osundairo, who worked as a stand-in on “Empire,” felt indebted to Smollett for helping him with his acting career.

On Tuesday, Detective Michael Theis said investigators scoured thousands of hours of footage, including video that showed the brothers buying supplies used in the attack, and discovered the $3,500 check Smollett claimed was for training, but which was actually payment for the alleged hoax.

Smollett’s attorneys have accused the Osundairos of lying and Chicago police of failing to follow up on leads, including a woman who told police she saw a suspicious white man carrying a rope hours before the attack, and a security guard who reported seeing a white man in a ski mask run past him.

The defense also argues the brothers were homophobic drug dealers, pointing to guns and cocaine found at their apartment.