Jussie Smollett’s hate crime case ended dramatically on Thursday when a Chicago judge sentenced him to five months in jail for making a “disgraceful” scene to fake a hate crime, prompting the disgraced actor to scream out in protest: “I’m innocent!”
As officers escorted him away in handcuffs, the 39-year-old former ‘EMPIRE’ actor kept maintaining his innocence saying:
“I could’ve said I was guilty a long time ago! I did not do this and I am not suicidal and if anything happens to me when I go there, I did not do it to myself and you must all know that.”
Before passing down his judgment, Judge James Linn asked Smollett if he had any other thing to say but he declined, with his lawyer Nenye Uche explaining he told Smollett not to say anything in order for them to appeal the conviction.
However, following a long speech from Linn, who found Smollett guilty for pretending to be a hate crime victim, Smollett began making noise in the court when he learned he’d be spending some time in prison, implying there was some sort of conspiracy against him.
“I am not suicidal. I am innocent and I’m not suicidal. If I did this, then it means that I shoved my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community,” Smollett shouted.
“Your honor, I respect you and I respect your decision, but I did not do this and I am not suicidal. If anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself, and you must all know that.”
Smollett was sentenced to 30 months of probation, and he must spend the first five months in the Cook County jail. In addition, Judge Linn ordered Smollett to pay a sum of $120,000 to the city of Chicago in restitution and a $25,000 fine after he was found guilty on five counts of felony disorderly conduct.
As he handed down his sentence, Linn called Smollett a “disgrace” to his people and said the actor’s performance during his eight-day trial late last year, in which he testified on his own behalf, was “pure perjury.”
“You’re not the victim of a racist hate crime, you’re not the victim of a homophobic hate crime, you’re just a charlatan pretending to be the victim of a hate crime and that’s shameful especially,” Linn told the court.
“You have another side of you that is profoundly arrogant and selfish and narcissistic and that bad side of you came out during the course of this,” the judge continued. Your performance on the witness stand, this can only be described as pure perjury. You got on the witness stand… you committed hour upon hour upon hour of pure perjury. Your very name has become an adverb for lying and I cannot imagine what could be worse than that.”
As members of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office removed Smollett from the courtroom, the actor’s legal team attempted to challenge the sentence by making a series of oral motions, all of which Linn “respectfully denied.”
“The wheels of justice turn slowly sometimes, the hammer of justice has to fall and it’s falling right here, right now,” Linn said.
“Hate crimes are the absolute worst and I believe you did damage to real hate crime victims. There are people who are actual genuine victims of hate crimes that you did damage to,” Linn added.
The sentence comes almost three years after Smollett hired two Nigerian-born brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo to “fake beat him up”, tie a rope around his neck, douse him in bleach and yell racist and homophobic slurs at him on a Streeterville street corner near his apartment.
As an actor himself, Smollett directed the two brothers from start to finish on how to carry out the fake attack on him. According to court documents, Smollett staged the racist attack in order to promote his career because he wasn’t satisfied with the salary he was receiving from the ‘Empire’ drama series.
