Jussie Smollett’s conviction overturned in alleged hate-crime hoax: How we got here and what’s next

By Ashley R. Williams, Megan Thomas, Sandra Gonzalez and Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly six years after actor Jussie Smollett was accused of staging a hate-crime hoax in downtown Chicago and lying to police, the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned his conviction over prosecutorial issues.

The court ruled that after Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped charges against the former “Empire” actor, a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene.

“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” Justice Elizabeth M. Rochford wrote in the court’s 5-0 decision, with two justices abstaining.

“Because the initial charges were dismissed as part of an agreement with defendant and defendant performed his part of the agreement, the second prosecution was barred,” said Rochford.

Smollett’s case that unfolded in early 2019 saw a shift from widespread sympathy that soon turned into skepticism – and his character being written off the Fox television show – as emerging details led to questions regarding the actor’s claims about what unfolded during the alleged attack.

This week’s ruling did not address Smollett’s claims of innocence, which he has maintained since 2019, according to his legal team.

Nenye Uche, Smollett’s lead attorney, said the original case should never have gone to trial, and that it would not have done so if his client was just a “regular Joe down the street.”

“This was a vindictive persecution. This was no prosecution,” Uche said.

“I’m sure Jussie would want an apology, but he’s a realistic man, right? He knows he’s not going to get it,” he added.

Speaking to CNN’s Laura Coates late Thursday, Foxx said that the Supreme Court’s decision affirms “what I learned in my first semester of my first year of law school.”

“You cannot try someone for the same crime twice,” she said. “It’s vindicating in that we should never have been here in the first place, because we find ourselves back where we were in March of 2019.”

Special Prosecutor Dan K. Webb expressed disappointment in the court’s decision to overturn the conviction and sentence, which included paying Chicago more than $120,000 in restitution for overtime expenses incurred while investigating the alleged hoax.

Webb said in a statement that Thursday’s ruling did “not clear Jussie Smollett’s name – he is not innocent.”

The City of Chicago is still able to pursue its pending civil lawsuit against Smollett in an attempt to recoup the more than $120,000, according to Webb.

How we got here

The many twists and turns of the case began early on January 29, 2019, when Smollett, who is Black and identifies as gay, told police he was attacked near his Chicago apartment by two men shouting racial and homophobic slurs at him.

Smollett said the men placed a noose around his neck and poured an unknown chemical substance on him, according to the Chicago Police Department at the time.

The actor also claimed that one of the men he said attacked him exclaimed, “This is MAGA country,” police said. Authorities initially investigated the incident as a hate crime.

The actor at first received widespread support as advocacy groups, his colleagues, other celebrities and politicians – including then-President Donald Trump – rallied behind him in the wake of the alleged hate-crime attack.

In a statement thanking fans in 2019, Smollett said he had “been 100% factual and consistent on every level” in response to doubts about his story’s integrity.

But a February 2019 confession from two brothers questioned in connection with the attack quickly led to the unraveling of Smollett’s account and credibility.

Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, who were described as persons of interest in the case that month, told Chicago authorities one hour before their 48-hour detention period was set to end that the attack was a hoax.

Smollett paid them $3,500 to carry out the staged attack in order to take “advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career,” said then-Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson.

“As far as we can tell, the scratching and bruising that you saw on his face were most likely self-inflicted,” Johnson said in late February 2019.

Smollett was arrested and faced a felony charge of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report and was released on bond.

The Osundairo brothers, who later went on to testify against Smollett, told investigators Smollett had initially “attempted to gain attention by sending a false letter that relied on racial, homophobic and political language,” according to Johnson.

A letter arrived at the Chicago set of “Empire” a week before the alleged attack.

It contained a white powder – later discovered to be aspirin – and a drawing of a “stick figure hanging from a tree,” police said. Smollett told Abimbola Osundairo he was disappointed in the “Empire” team’s reaction to the letter, according to prosecutors.

Smollett then paid the brothers to stage the attack, Chicago authorities said.

The Osundairo brothers were released without being charged, and Smollett denied any involvement in orchestrating a hoax.

Initial charges dropped before grand jury indictment

In March 2019, a Cook County grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 counts of disorderly conduct. Following the alleged attack, the indictment said he gave separate statements with differing details to a Chicago police officer and a detective.

Smollett pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Foxx removed herself from the case shortly before the charges were announced to address impartiality concerns “based upon familiarity with potential witnesses in this case,” a spokeswoman from her office said at the time.

Later that month, prosecutors dropped all charges against Smollett. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said the decision came after reviewing the case and after Smollett agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond, CNN previously reported.

Chicago city officials condemned the move, and Johnson said he supported investigators’ conclusions that the attack was a hoax.

A Cook County circuit judge in June 2019 approved appointing a special prosecutor to handle an independent investigation of Smollett’s case.

Also that month, Chicago police released body camera footage from the night of the alleged attack showing the actor with rope tied in a noose around his neck. Police released the tape along with some text messages, more than 70 hours of video and more than 400 pages of search warrants to the media.

In January 2020, a judge ordered Google to hand over to the special prosecutor more than a year’s worth of personal electronic data from Smollett, including geolocation information, search history and photographs.

The following month, a grand jury indicted Smollett for making false reports after Webb said his office had finished its investigative steps regarding the case and had decided to prosecute him further.

Smollett was charged with making four separate false reports to Chicago officers, according to a statement from Webb’s office released around that time. Smollett pleaded not guilty through his attorney.

He was found guilty in December 2021 on five of the six felony counts and sentenced in March 2022 to 30 months of felony probation that included 150 days in jail. He was also ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution and fined $25,000 for making false police reports.

Smollett spent less than a week in jail after an Illinois appeals court granted an emergency motion by his attorneys to delay his sentence and grant him bail until their appeal is resolved, CNN previously reported.

What could be next for Smollett’s career

Smollett returned to the screen earlier this year in the film “The Lost Holliday,” which he directed and starred in. The role marks his first on-screen appearance since his character in the television series “Empire” was written off shortly after his 2019 arrest.

Smollett has remained committed to clearing his name in the nearly six years since his arrest.

“I don’t want to have a felony on my record for something that I didn’t do,” Smollett said in an interview last month with Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner.

“That’s what we’re fighting for. I know that on the surface it probably seems like, ‘Why doesn’t he just serve the time, why doesn’t he just let this go?’ It would be easier if I had in fact done this to say that I did it. I wouldn’t have spent almost $3 million of my own money. I wouldn’t have had a trial,” Smollett told ET.

He reportedly sought treatment for substance abuse last year.

Smollett said in his interview with ET that he feels he deserves a second chance professionally.

“No matter how much people are yelling in my face, saying, ‘You’re a liar, you’re a liar,’ no, I’m not. No, I’m not. I don’t want them to believe that,” Smollett said.

“I haven’t switched my story up. I haven’t changed anything that I ever said,” he told ET. “I stand by every single thing that I’ve ever said. Everyone else in the situation, every single person, has changed their story numerous times.”

CNN’s Chris Boyette, Bill Kirkos, Omar Jimenez, Steve Almasy, Ashley Killough, Andy Rose and Christina Maxouris contributed to this report.

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