Actor Jussie Smollett stood up and proclaimed his innocence—and said he was “not suicidal”—after he was sentenced to 150 days in jail on Thursday. The verdict was imposed three months after the former Empire star was convicted of orchestrating a fake racist and homophobic attack against himself and lying to police about it.
“We’re at the end of the road here,” Cook County Judge James Linn began, before handing down his full verdict: 30 months of felony probation and more than $120,000 in restitution.
Smollett faced a maximum of 15 years behind bars.
ADVERTISEMENT
After concluding, Judge Linn asked if the 39-year-old defendant had any questions.
Smollett pulled down his mask. “Your Honor—I would just like to say to Your Honor that I am not suicidal,” he said.
“OK,” Linn replied.
On the verge of pulling his mask back up, Smollett seemed to change his mind, and turned to the rest of the court.
“I am not suicidal,” he repeated. “I am not suicidal. I am innocent. And I am not suicidal.”
The actor suddenly rose to his feet. “If I did this,” he said heatedly, “then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of Black Americans in this country for over 400 years, and the fears of the LGBTQ community. Your Honor, I respect you, and I respect the jury, but I did not do this. And I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that.”
As he was led out of the courtroom, Smollett held up a fist. “I am not suicidal!” he yelled. “I am not suicidal! And I am innocent! I could have said that I was guilty a long time ago!”
In his remarks prior to issuing the sentence, Judge Linn told Smollett that, no matter what, “There is nothing any sentencing judge can do that can compare to the damage you’ve already done to yourself.”
Linn said he believed that Smollett had planned, scripted, and executed the attack with “extreme premeditation.” The actor hadn’t done it for the money, the judge reasoned, but rather “for one reason: You wanted to make yourself more famous.”
Arguing for a stiff penalty earlier on Thursday, prosecutors cited police officials who fear the case could discourage actual hate crime victims from reporting future incidents to cops. Special Prosecutor Dan Webb said Smollett was uncooperative with investigators, refusing to provide a DNA sample, and had not performed “a single act of contrition” to date.
He asked the judge for “an appropriate amount” of prison time, without specifying an exact term. Webb also requested Smollett be made to pay $130,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago—the amount the Chicago Police Department has sued Smollett over in civil court for police overtime incurred during the investigation.
The defense asked for probation. Nenye Uche, a member of Smollett’s legal team, said what the prosecution was seeking was “overkill.”
“That’s called beating a dead horse,” Uche said. “That is not justice.” He later added that sending Smollett to jail would be “almost like a death sentence” given the rates of coronavirus infections recorded in incarcerated populations.
Smollett’s brother, Joel Smollett, Jr., addressed the court as a character witness on Thursday, asking the judge for leniency and suggesting that the prosecution had gone overboard in their determination to convict Smollett.
“He has always been a loyal, loving and creative human being,” he said in an impassioned statement. “He is not a threat to the people of Illinois… The crime he has been accused of is not even a felony in most states… Incarceration of any kind would send the wrong message, especially in a time in which we as a nation have expressed in a bipartisan majority, the desire to see real criminal justice reform and an end to unnecessary mass incarceration, which predominantly affects African-Americans, Hispanics, and Latinos, and poor and impoverished white people.”
In his own testimony, Richard Daniels, 61, the musical director on Empire, said he became “very good friends” with Smollett. Daniels said Smollett, whom he described as a “loving, wonderful young man,” was always generous with his time and money when it came to charity.
“It was always with a loving heart,” said Daniels.
Judge Linn said he has received scores of letters from people asking him not to send Smollett to prison. One read in court on Thursday by defense attorney Shay Allen was submitted by Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson and his wife LaTanya. Others were written by civil-rights icon Jesse Jackson, Black Lives Matter leaders, and Oscar nominee Alfre Woodard.
Smollett asked for a five-minute recess before making any final address to the court on Thursday. Upon return, Uche told Judge Linn that he had advised his client not to make a statement “based on his appellate rights at this time.”
The judge replied that he needed to hear that from the defendant himself.
“No,” Smollett appeared to say, his voice unamplified. “I don’t want to say anything.”
In December, a jury found Smollett guilty of five felony counts of disorderly conduct but acquitted him of a sixth. Smollett has one previous misdemeanor arrest and conviction on his record after pleading no contest in 2007 to giving police a false name during a DUI traffic stop. For that offense, Smollett paid a fine and served two years’ probation.
The new charges stemmed from Smollett reporting a hate crime to police that prosecutors said never occurred. In 2019, Smollett, who is Black and gay, claimed that two men in ski masks jumped him on a Chicago street corner near his apartment while shouting racist and homophobic slurs. Smollett said the pair doused him in bleach and put a rope around his neck.
But in testimony during the eight-day trial, two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, said Smollett paid them to stage the incident. They told the jury that Smollett paid for the ski masks they wore, and told him what to say during the supposed attack. Prosecutors said Smollett was motivated by a desire to bolster his name recognition.
However, the defense argued that one of the brothers and Smollett had been dating prior to the attack, and that the attack was real—because Abimbola Osundairo was homophobic and harbored a distaste for Smollett.
The three knew each other from the set of Empire, but Smollett said on the witness stand that he didn’t recognize either of the men attacking him.
Smollett’s role was written out of Empire amid his legal troubles. He testified that his career was stalled in light of the accusations and charges.
Defense lawyers argued on Thursday, in a last-ditch effort to save their client, that it had been improper to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue a second set of charges against Smollett after the original set was dismissed in exchange for Smollett forfeiting his $10,000 bond and doing 15 hours of community service. This meant Smollett was essentially tried twice for the same crime, a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause, Smollett attorney Tina Glandian argued.
Among other things, Glandian also contended that Smollett was convicted by a jury that did not consist “of Mr. Smollett’s peers,” and, as such, he should be granted a new trial.
Prosecutors disagreed, as did the judge, at times looking mildly exasperated as the defense floated its criticisms of the way the trial was handled.
“There has been some suggestion that somehow this court should not have allowed the second indictment to go forward, that somehow these proceedings are flawed and a special prosecutor never should have been appointed,” Linn said, rebutting the defense’s arguments and saying that a “second look” by a special prosecutor was in fact necessary.
“I am going to stand by my findings and rulings,” he said, denying the motion for another trial.
