Actor Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days in jail for lying about hate crime

Former ‘Empire’ star Jussie Smollett was sentenced Thursday to 150 days in jail for lying to police about a racist and homophobic attack that he orchestrated in 2019, which caused a national uproar as it unfolded.

In addition to jail time, Cook County Judge James Linn, describing Smollett’s crime as “a crime of opportunity” and a “crime of premeditation,” sentenced the actor to 30 months of felony probation and ordered him to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago and a maximum fine of $25,000 stemming from his 2019 report of an alleged hate crime.

Despite Linn’s sharp words, the sentencing was expected to be somewhat lenient toward the actor because he doesn’t have an extensive criminal history and because he was convicted of a low-level, nonviolent crime, Associated Press reported. Smollett had faced a penalty of up to three years in prison for five felony counts of disorderly conduct.

And while that appears to conclude the protracted case, Smollett’s attorney has said they plan to appeal the conviction.

The 39-year-old actor, who has weathered a personal and professional fallout over the last three years, arrived at the courthouse Thursday afternoon flanked by family members. Some of them, including his brother Joel and his 92-year-old grandmother, offered character-witness statements during the mitigating factors phase of sentencing.

Taking the witness stand, his grandmother, Molly Smollett, looked directly into the courtroom camera and called the media portrayal of Smollett a “betrayal” that doesn’t match up with the man she knows. “If you send him to prison, send me along with him,” she said.

Social justice and civil rights organizations Black Lives Matter, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the NAACP, as well as actors LaTanya and Samuel L. Jackson and Smollett’s “Empire” co-star Alfre Woodard, also provided statements of support that were read aloud in court. They asked that Smollett’s history of community service, lack of criminal record and unlikelihood for recidivism to be weighed during sentencing for his nonviolent offense.

Actor Jussie Smollett and his legal team appear at his sentencing hearing Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago.

(Brian Cassella / Associated Press)

The Jacksons, who have known Smollett since he was a baby, asked “for mercy” and an alternative to incarceration for Smollett for the low-level Class 4 felony. Rev. Jesse L. Jackson wrote the statement for RPC.

Smollett’s defense attorney, Tina Glandian, on Thursday first sought to have the jury’s verdict overturned and filed a motion last month for a new trial. Glandian argued that there were 13 errors in the previous trial that overlooked exculpatory evidence and “constituted reversible error” that “undoubtedly affected the verdict.”

Prosecutors in court Thursday said that they “universally disagree” that there was any error in those prior rulings and that the evidence “overwhelmingly established Mr. Smollett’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” They also presented a victim-impact statement on behalf of the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department that said Smollett’s actions hurt “actual victims” of hate crimes.

During the aggravating-factors segment of the proceedings, prosecutor Dan Webb argued that Smollett faked a hate crime “to benefit himself because he’s Black and gay and then he made a choice to report it to the Chicago Police Department to bring public attention to it.” Webb said that Smollett also obstructed justice by lying to police and never showed contrition or apologized since the alleged incident.

The judge denied the motion and upheld the jury’s verdict nearly two hours into the proceedings Thursday.

“I’ve never had a case that has been pled as exhaustively as this one,” Linn said. Later, he said that he found Smollett’s “extreme meditation in the case to be an aggravating factor.”

The defense team had declined having cameras in the courtroom up until Thursday’s hearing, when a live feed of the proceedings was available to the public.

After a nearly two-week trial, which took place on the cusp of the Omicron surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, Smollett was convicted in Chicago in December on charges that he staged an antigay, racist attack on himself nearly three years ago and then lied to police about it. The actor-singer has maintained his innocence throughout the case and said in court testimony that “there was no hoax.”

He was found guilty on five of six counts of disorderly conduct — one count for each time he allegedly lied to police in the days immediately after he alleged the hate crime. He was acquitted on a sixth count. Smollett claimed to police that on that frigid night, two assailants beat him, put a rope around his neck and splashed him with a liquid chemical.

Brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo were originally suspected to be the assailants; however, they claimed that Smollett, who one of the brothers knew from work, paid them $3,500 to stage the attack.

The trial included the testimony of five Chicago Police Department officers, the Osundairo brothers and Smollett himself, as well as six of his witnesses.

Smollett wasn’t taken into custody when the verdict was returned in December, but he remained free until Thursday’s sentencing.

A $130,000 civil lawsuit that the city of Chicago filed against him to recover the cost of police overtime is still pending.