Actor accused of ‘despicable’ hoax
CHICAGO — Prosecutors say Jussie Smollett paid two men, including a close friend who worked alongside him on the Fox drama “Empire,” to help him stage a fake attack he later framed as a racist and homophobic hate crime.
The actor’s bond was set at $100,000 at a court hearing Thursday afternoon, during which Cook County Circuit Court Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke also directed Smollett to Smollett surrender his passport. Risa Lanier, chief of the prosecution bureau for the Cook County state’s attorney office, outlined the state’s case against Smollett after the hearing.
Prosecutors have identified the two men as brothers Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo. They say Smollett and Abel Osundairo were close friends who worked together on”empire,” where Abel was a stand-in for a love interest of Smollett’s character, Jamal Lyon. Prosecutors also say Abel had been “a source of designer drugs” including
molly, a form of MDMA, for Smollett since the spring of 2018. They say Smollett met Ola Osundairo, who appeared as an extra on “Empire,” “on several occasions through Abel.”
Prosecutors allege that Smollett was the guiding force behind the staged attack, right down to the intersection where it took place. They say Smollett told the Osundairo brothers, who are of Nigerian descent, that they should call his attention by yelling racial and homophobic slurs and say “this is MAGA country.” They also say Smollett provided a $100 bill for supplies including rope, ski masks, gloves and red baseball hats resembling the “Make America Great Again” hats associated with President Donald Trump’s campaign.
According to prosecutors, Smollett coordinated the plan around a trip the brothers had planned to Nigeria.
During the hearing, Smollett took deep breaths, shook his head and kept his eyes closed. Lyke called the charges, if true, “despicable.”
Smollett’s attorneys have maintained he did not play a role in his attack.
The actor, who was arrested after turning himself in Thursday morning, has been charged with felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report. He faces up to three years in prison. The next court hearing is March 14.
Chicago police said Smollett concocted the story of a brutal hate crime because he was “dissatisfied with his salary” on the Fox drama. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said the department has a $3,500 check that Smollett paid the men to help him stage the fake attack after a crude, threatening letter he sent to the “Empire”set in Chicago failed to get attention.
Johnson was remarkably forceful in his remarks about the case. A black native of Chicago, he said the actor “took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.”
Johnson also lamented the many resources Chicago police used on an investigation that lasted weeks, and, referring to the flock of reporters in the room, grimly noted that he wished “the families of gun violence in this city got this much attention.”
In a matter of weeks, Smollett traveled the arc of a black and openly gay hatecrime victim to potential criminal himself. The vivid details of his alleged Jan. 29 attack — including a rope put around his neck — captured the attention of Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and and Kamala Harris of California, and celebrities who saw the supposed assault as a tangible result of social decay and toxic Johnson political discourse.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., deleted a tweet that referred to the alleged attack as “an affront to our humanity.”
Conservatives blasted the incident as an example of a credulous media extending a narrative that Trump supporters have escalated his divisive rhetoric with acts of violence.
Trump reacted to news of Smollett’s arrest on Twitter Thursday. “@ Jussiesmollett — what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!? #MAGA,” Trump wrote.
Editor and commentator Jarrett Stepman of The Daily Signal, an online publication of the conservative Heritage Foundation, faulted leftof-center pundits and politicians for seizing immediately on Smollett’s claims in a bid to score political points.
“Instead of just treating this as a serious crime, it was used as a political bludgeon to malign large swaths of Americans,” he said. “There was a rush to find a story to attack half the country.”
However, Stepman said he shared concerns that the case might have unfortunate consequences.
“Heinous hate crimes do exist in this country, but it’s the ‘boy who cried wolf’ thing,” Stepman said. “People become cynical, and that’s not a healthy thing for American society.”
“The danger is that it will cause people to respond with skepticism whenever they hear reports of hate violence, even though the overwhelming majority of those reports are completely true,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Smollett has aligned himself in the past with organizations dedicated to HIV/AIDS awareness, civil rights and LGBTQ advocacy. He invoked this while discussing the skepticism surrounding his claims during an interview that aired last week on “Good Morning America.”
“I’m an advocate. I respect too much the people — who I am now, one of those people — who have been attacked in any way,” he told ABC’S Robin Roberts. “You do such a disservice when you lie about things like this.”
Johnson said Smollett had been treated like a victim until “we received evidence that led detectives in another direction.”
“We gave him the benefit of the doubt,” he said later while responding to questions from reporters. “But when we discovered the actual motive, quite frankly, it pissed everybody off.”
On Thursday, Twentieth Century Fox and Fox Entertainment said in a statement that “we understand the seriousness of this matter and we respect the legal process. We are evaluating the situation and we are considering our options.”
Smollett is earning more than $100,000 per episode,” a person familiar with the situation said.