Jussie Smollett's conviction in hoax attack overturned by state supreme court

The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett's conviction for lying about a 2019 hate crime.

Smollett was found guilty in 2021 of faking a racist and homophobic attack and lying to the police. His lawyers said this violated his Fifth Amendment rights because, in 2019, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx had already agreed to drop the charges if Smollett paid $10,000 and did community service. A special prosecutor later charged him again, leading to his trial and conviction.

In its decision, filed on Thursday, the court stated they are resolving a "question about the State's responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants."

The court stated it did not find that the state could bring a second prosecution against Smollett after the initial charges were dismissed as part of an agreement and the actor performed the terms of the agreement, noting that Illinois case law establishes that it is "fundamentally unfair to allow the prosecution to renege on a deal with a defendant when the defendant has relied on the agreement to his detriment."

"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. Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied," it said.

Among the cases cited in the court's decision is Bill Cosby's, whose conviction on sexual assault charges was overturned in 2021 by Pennsylvania's highest court.

Cosby was sentenced in 2018 to three to 10 years in state prison for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. After hearing Cosby's appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that his prosecution should never have occurred due to a deal the comedian cut with former Montgomery County prosecutor Bruce Castor, who agreed not to criminally prosecute Cosby if he gave a deposition in a civil case brought against him by Constand.

While citing the Cosby case, the Illinois Supreme Court said the state "reneging on a fully executed agreement" after Smollett forfeited a $10,000 bond "would be arbitrary, unreasonable, fundamentally unfair, and a violation of the defendant's due process rights."

The Illinois Supreme Court's decision cancels earlier rulings by Cook County and appellate courts. The court has now sent the case back to the lower court to officially dismiss the charges.

Smollett’s legal team hailed the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision to overturn his convictions as a victory for justice and fairness.

"This was a vindictive persecution, not a prosecution," lead attorney Nenye Uche said during a press conference in Chicago Thursday afternoon. "The Supreme Court made it clear: prosecutions must be based on facts, not public opinion."

"If this had been a regular citizen, this case would never have gone to trial," he added.

Smollett's legal team said the decision means the actor owes no further fines or service.

While the city of Chicago's civil case against Smollett for reimbursement of investigation costs remains unresolved, Uche said their "focus today is on the criminal appeal."

"This case has wasted enough taxpayer money," Shay Allen, another attorney on Smollett's legal team, said during the press briefing. "It's time to move forward."

Dan Webb, who was appointed by a Cook County judge to continue looking into the case after the Cook County State's Attorney's Office dropped all charges against the actor, said he was "disappointed" in the court's decision.

"We respectfully disagree with the Court’s factual and legal reasoning which upends long-standing Illinois precedent," he said in a lengthy statement.

Webb noted that the ruling "has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence."

"The Illinois Supreme Court did not find any error with the overwhelming evidence presented at trial that Mr. Smollett orchestrated a fake hate crime and reported it to the Chicago Police Department as a real hate crime, or the jury’s unanimous verdict that Mr. Smollett was guilty of five counts of felony disorderly conduct," he said.

He also said the decision is "not the result of any error or conduct by the Office of the Special Prosecutor, the trial court, or the Chicago Police Department," but is "only possible because of the unprecedented resolution" of the initial case by the Cook County State’s Attorney's Office.

"Despite today’s ruling, the City of Chicago remains able to pursue its pending civil lawsuit against Mr. Smollett in order to recoup the over $120,000 in overtime expenses the Chicago Police Department incurred for investigating Mr. Smollett’s fake hate crime," Webb said.

A jury convicted Smollett in December 2021 on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct stemming from him filing a false police report and lying to police, who spent more than $130,000 investigating his allegations.

He was sentenced to 150 days in county jail, ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago, fined $25,000 and ordered to serve 30 months of felony probation.

The case began after the openly gay actor told police that he was set upon by two men while walking on a street near his Chicago apartment early on Jan. 29, 2019. The attackers allegedly shouted racist and homophobic slurs before hitting him, pouring "an unknown chemical substance" on him and wrapping a rope around his neck.

Chicago police said Smollett's story of being the victim of an attack began to unravel when investigators tracked down two men, brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who they said were seen in a security video near where Smollett claimed he was assaulted and around the same time it supposedly occurred. The Osundairo brothers told police the actor paid them $3,500 to help him orchestrate and stage the crime.

In March 2019, a grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. In a stunning move, Foxx's office dropped the charges later that month despite acknowledging Smollett fabricated the street attack on himself in an attempt to get a pay raise for his role on "Empire." As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Smollett forfeited 10% of a $100,000 bond and preemptively completed community service prior to the charges being dropped.

In June 2019, Webb was appointed to investigate the decision to dismiss all charges against Smollett. The actor was subsequently indicted again in February 2020 on six felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports to police.