Actor Jussie Smollett on Thursday was found guilty on five of six counts of disorderly conduct for making a false report to Chicago police, staging an incident where he pretended to be the victim of a hate crime in January 2019, said attack prosecutors.
The jury's decision was made up of six men and six women who deliberated for over nine hours from Wednesday to Thursday. After the verdict was read in court, Smollett appeared rigid. The actor stood still, did not move, and only looked straight ahead while his conviction was laid out.
Jussie Smollett Case
Smollett focused his attention on the jury that was responsible for the verdict and did not turn to look at his family or the judge in the court. Officials classified a disorderly conduct charge for a false crime report as a Class 4 felony. The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of $25,000.
Cook County Judge James Linn will have the discretion of imposing a concurrent or consecutive sentence for each of Smollett's counts at a later date. During a news conference, special prosecutor Dan Webb said he was proud of the jury for their verdict, CNN reported.
Webb argued that Smollett would not have lost the case unless the jury found that the suspect lied to them in court. The prosecutor said that the actor's attempts to explain his misconduct by coming up with a ridiculous story did not impact the jury's decision.
Smollett's trial lasted for roughly a week, featuring various witness testimonies, counsel arguments, and deliberation. Judge Linn said that the jury will not be speaking to the media on the day of the verdict. The judge is also ordering deputies to escort the jury to their cars.
In 2019, the 39-year-old actor allegedly made false statements to police related to a hate crime against himself. He claimed, at the time, that two men attacked him because of his skin color and sexual orientation, Fox News reported.
Orchestrated Attack
However, despite the verdict, Smollett's defense attorney, Nenye Ucge, said the actor plans to appeal the court's conviction. Uche said that the suspect was disappointed by the decision but was "holding up very strong" and was committed to clearing his name. The defense attorney was confident that an appellate court will clear the actor's name.
In an interview with reporters after the jury's verdict on Smollett, Uche said that his team was, unfortunately, facing an uphill battle where the actor was already tried and convicted in the media. Uche said that the defense team had to make the jury forget about all of the negative news that had spread in the last three years about Smollett.
The results of the case have severely damaged Smollett's personal and professional life, losing his role on the TV program "Empire" after prosecutors alleged that the racist attack was a fake one. During the actor's trial, two brothers testified that the actor hired them to fake the attack near his home in downtown Chicago in January 2019. Smollett allegedly orchestrated the incident to have a noose tied around his neck and have the whole ordeal caught by a surveillance camera and for the recordings to be uploaded to social media, Yahoo Entertainment reported.
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