In what will come as a shock to absolutely no one, Jussie Smollett has been convicted of staging and reporting a hate crime on himself, finally bringing an end to this bizarre saga that has been going on for nearly 3 years now.
As per the Chicago Tribune, Smollett was found guilty on 5 of 6 counts. Funnily enough, the charge they did not find him guilty of was ‘lying of being a victim of aggravated battery’, because technically he was beaten up, even though he was the one who paid his buddies to do to him. Lol.
It’s pretty wild reading about the witness testaments during the trial, including that of Chicago Police Detective Michael Theis, the first witness called to the stand…
“To this day, has Mr. Smollett ever come clean about this hate crime?” deputy special prosecutor Samuel Mendenhall asked the cop.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Theis responded.
Theis also said Smollett was “not forthcoming” with investigators after he reported that he was attacked by men using homophobic and racial epithets while they allegedly assaulted him, according to a report by FoxNews.
Theis said a squad of about two dozen detectives logged some 3,000 hours investigating the actor’s claim.
You may remember the national outrage around this whole thing when news of the “attack” first broke. People wanted answers and those responsible caught. Police were trying very hard to do that, but Jussie Smollett wasn’t giving them the info they needed. For obvious reasons.
But he said Smollett refused to give cops his medical records or a DNA sample to compare to evidence at the scene.
The surveillance footage shows Smollett walking near the scene with the Osundario brothers a day earlier, with the siblings seen taking a cab to a nearby neighborhood.
The two then switched to an Uber and met up with Smollett, special prosecutor Dan Webb told jurors during the proceedings.
Smollett’s lawyers tried to argue that police didn’t take Smollett seriously from the beginning, and that the two brothers attacked Smollett because they didn’t like him and were homophobic, and that the $3,5000 cheque that Smollett gave the brothers was for personal training services.
They were always fighting a losing battle though, because the prosecution had video evidence of Jussie and the brothers performing a “dry-run” of the attack. You know, like actors do. Literally rehearsing it! Not to mention all the other damning evidence, including a video of the brothers buying the items depicted in the rehearsal video and “found” on Smollett.
Prosectors also revealed a text message Smollett had sent to one of the brothers in the weeks following the attack…
“Brother…..I love you,” Smollett wrote to Abimbola Osundairo on Feb. 14, 2019. “I stand with you. I know 10000% you and your brother did nothing wrong and never would.”
There was also this unbelievable moment that showed Smollett’s legal team are just as sneaky as Smollett himself…
The case was also marked by an unusual amount of back and forth between the defense and the judge. At one point, a defense attorney told the judge she planned to file for a mistrial during a sidebar and claimed that the judge had lunged at her before going back to the bench. The judge said he was merely surprised that she thought there was grounds for a mistrial and denied lunging at her. He denied the motion for a mistrial.
Smollett faces up to three years in prison, though with no prior criminal record it’s likely he’ll get something far lighter or just probation. The real justice though is that he was totally found out and humiliated and has probably ruined his career for good. Nice knowing ya Jussie.
