Empire tv series’ Jussie Smollett convicted of staging hate crime and lying to law enforcement. The actor has been found guilty on 5 out of 6 charges in the alleged hate crime hoax trial.
After a contentious week of witness testimony, counsel arguments and deliberation, the jury found Smollett guilty on the first five counts and he was acquitted on a sixth count, of lying to a detective in mid-February, weeks after Smollett said he was attacked.
Smollett was stoic as the jury read the verdict. The actor sat upright and stared straight ahead without showing any real emotion.
Judge Linn said he will order a pre-sentencing investigation and attorneys will meet via conference call to determine a date for pre-sentencing motions.
The judge also said the jury will not be speaking to the media today, if they ever choose to. He is also having deputies escort them to their cars.
The 39-year-old “Empire” alum was charged with six counts of disorderly conduct related to false statements to Chicago police officers in regard to a 2019 hate crime against himself. In 2019, he claimed that two men attacked him due to his skin color and sexual orientation.
Smollett has maintained his innocence and said during his two-day testimony that “there was no hate crime hoax from my standpoint.”
Prosecutors, however, argued that Smollett carried out a “dry run” of the attack the day before it occurred in 2019.
Among the surprising claims made in Smollett’s testimony was the revelation that the actor received a text from CNN’s Don Lemon, supposedly relaying information that the Chicago Police Department didn’t believe Smollett’s account of what happened.
The Jussie Smollett convicted news cones after months of deliberation.
Additionally, he pushed back against testimonies from Bola Osundairo, one of the alleged attackers, claiming that he’d purchased drugs from the man and “made out” with him at a gay bathhouse.
Osundairo testified that he is not gay and their relationship was not sexual in nature. He also previously stated that he did not sell drugs to Smollett but merely acquired them for him.
The charge is a class 4 felony that carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have said if convicted, Smollett would likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service