The only Black juror on the panel that convicted actor Jussie Smollett for staging a hate crime attack and lying to Chicago police about it said he couldn’t get past what the actor did not do after claiming two men attacked and looped a noose around his neck: Rip it off and keep it off.
Many people might see the noose as Smollett’s awkward idea to portray his attackers as racist, but the black juror, Andre Hope, saw much more.
Andre Hope told WLS-TV that as an African American person, he is not putting that noose back on at all. At trial, the former Empire actor testified that after the staged attack in 2019 in downtown Chicago, he came back to his apartment and put the rope back around his neck so that cops could see it when they come to his house soon after.
Moreover, Hope was not the only Black American who had issues with Smollett’s use of such a potent symbol of racism in the United States to convince law enforcement officials that he was the victim of a hate crime.
After Smollett, 39, was found guilty last week, Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson said virtually the same thing in an interview with NewsNation.
“I was concerned because I don’t think there’s many Black people in America with a noose around their neck and wouldn’t immediately take it off,” Johnson said.
Additionally, Hope found the evidence against Smollett very overwhelming. At trial, two brothers, Abimbola and Olabingo Osundairo testified that the actor employed them to pose as his attackers, a job for which Smollett paid them $3,500. Hope said the contradictory narrative put forth by Smollett’s attorneys that the brothers had actually planned the attack on Smollett did not make sense.
“When you just use your common sense as what’s there, yeah it just, it didn’t add up,” said 63-year-old Hope, a father of two who resides in suburban Bellwood, west of Chicago.
At first, Hope said he was angry and virtually believed Smollett’s story because the studio where the actor filmed the television program “Empire” did not take hate mail he received as something to be trifled with. However, after all the evidence came to light after all the witnesses testified, Hope still has one big question.
“I still have not figured out a motive for why he did, why this had to even happen,” Hope said. “He was a star.”
When he returns to court next year for sentencing, Smollett will be facing up to three years in prison. However, according to experts, the actor will likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.
Hope would be OK with that because he thinks Smollett does not deserve to go to prison. In addition, the 63-year-old black jury hopes Smollett, who testified that he had lost his livelihood, would be given a chance to resume his career as an actor.
