(Photo Credits: Dominick D, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

This Thursday—March 10, 2022—former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of felony probation following the jury’s guilty verdict way back in December.  In addition, Smollett has also been ordered to pay restitution amounting to $120,106 to the city of Chicago on top of a $25,000 fine.

“Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this,” the actor said after the judge delivered his sentence, maintaining that he was innocent. “And I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that.” Watch the moment below:



The conclusion came over three years later since Jussie Smollett—39, an actor and an openly gay black man—had reported on January 29, 2019 that he was attacked by two men in Chicago who he said had also yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him.

But after police investigation, Smollett charged with 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct last March 8, 2019 for allegedly staging a fake racist and homophobic hate crime attack on himself. However, these charges were dropped by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office last March 26, 2019. The decision came after “reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case” including Smollett’s agreement to forfeit his bond plus the community service he rendered. His case files were “immediately sealed” and were said to have been expunged from Smollett’s records.

Last June 2019, however, Cook County Judge Michael Toomin “ruled that irregularities in the case warranted a special prosecutor.” Two months later, Judge Toomin appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb as special prosecutor to look into the entire Jussie Smollett case. At the time, Chicago Tribune said that the special prosecutor could file new charges against Smollett “or anyone else they reasonably believe committed a crime.” Fast forward to February 11, 2020, it was announced that Smollett was indicted by grand jury on six counts of disorderly conduct for filing false reports to Chicago police officers. Read more about Smollett’s case here.

As aforementioned, he was found guilty last December on five counts (out of six that was filed against him) of disorderly conduct for making false reports that he was a victim of racist and homophobic hate crime attack. See his charges below:

Source: AP News

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