Jussie Smollett, one of the stars of the popular television drama Empire, was found guilty of five felony accounts of disorderly conduct for falsely telling police he was the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime in 2019.
Smollett told police in January 2019 that he was attacked in the middle of the night by two masked men while walking near his Chicago home. However, Smollett staged the attack with the assistance of Nigerian brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo.
Investigators concluded that he had orchestrated the whole event based on examination of closed-circuit television images and the cellphone data of Smollett and his two alleged attackers.
Smollett hired the Osundairos to stage the attack while invoking Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, after the actor had received a legitimate piece of hate mail which he felt was not taken seriously by his employers.
The actor faces up to three years in prison but could instead be sentenced to probation and community service.
Smollett, who is gay and African-American, maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty on all counts. The Osundairo brothers, however, testified they had been paid to stage the assault. Abimbola Osundairo said Smollett “talked about how the studio was not taking… hate mail seriously.”
“Then he proceeded to tell me he wanted me to beat him up,” he said. “I was supposed to punch him but not too hard.”