In January 2019, the ‘Empire’ actor reported being beaten by two people who yelled racial and homophobic insults.
American actor Jussie Smollett was convicted of five counts on Thursday of the six he faced for faking an alleged attack in Chicago (USA) in January 2019, described as racist and homophobic.
So decided by a Cook County jury, in the state of Illinois, after more than nine hours of deliberations on these charges, of which the former protagonist of the series Empire he had previously pleaded not guilty.
After deliberating for more than nine hours, the jury of 12 people iHe stated that he had chosen to believe the tales of two brothers who testified that Smollett had asked them to lightly injure him as part of a publicity stunt.
Smollett, 39, was found guilty of five of the six counts of disorderly conduct under an Illinois state law prohibiting false police reports, which could lead to three years in prison and a fine of $ 25,000.
The actor, who is African American and homosexual, reported to the police that he was attacked by two men in downtown Chicago, who insulted him, they doused with a supposedly caustic liquid and hung a rope around his neck.
The attackers would have yelled at him “This is a MAGA country“, Referring to the campaign slogan of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021)”Make America great Again” (Let’s make America great again).
However, in investigations would have discovered that it was all a hoax prepared by the actor, who wanted to impress the producers of the TV series and bolster his career.
This was precisely one of the points that the Prosecutor’s Office insisted on throughout the trial, which ended up convincing the Cook County jury. The first criminal charges against Smollett for false complaint were dismissed in a controversial decision by the Attorney General for that county.
In a second instance, Special Counsel Dan Webb reviewed the handling of the case and got a special jury to approve six charges against the actor in February 2020, for disorderly conduct and lying to the police about an alleged hate crime.
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
