Actor Jussie Smollett speaks to Judge James Linn after his sentence is read at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on March 10, 2022.
Brian Cassella/AP file
A three-justice appeals court panel has affirmed the conviction and sentence of actor Jussie Smollett for lying to police about being the victim of a hate crime.
A Cook County jury found Smollett guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct in 2021, and he was sentenced to 30 months of probation, with the first 150 days to be served at Cook County Jail.
Smollett appealed the conviction and was released while it was pending after spending six days behind bars. A spokeswoman for the actor said Smollett will appeal Friday’s decision.
His attorneys argued that a convoluted court process and multiple issues at trial had violated his civil rights, in particular, that a special prosecutor was appointed and brought new charges against the actor after earlier charges had been dropped by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
The charges stemmed from the actor’s claims that he was attacked by two men who made remarks indicating they were supporters of President Donald Trump while beating him, dousing him with a bleach-like substance and hanging a thin, rope noose around his neck as he walked to his Streeterville apartment in January 2019.
Word of the alleged attack quickly spread in the media and police said they dedicated thousands of hours to investigating Smollett’s claims, only for the evidence to point to the actor’s involvement in staging the attack.
Smollett was charged the next month with disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. He pleaded not guilty.
But in a stunning decision that March, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office announced it was dropping all charges after reaching an agreement with the actor to use his bond to pay restitution to the city. Smollett was not required to admit guilt as part of the deal.
The decision has hounded Foxx since. A special prosecutor was appointed to review it, and while Foxx and others in her office were eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, the report by Special Prosecutor Dan Webb found “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures.”
Webb later brought a new indictment against Smollett, charging the actor a second time, which eventually led to his conviction.
Smollett attended the appeals court arguments in September, where he told the Sun-Times he would “talk about everything” once his long-running legal saga was over.
An attorney for Smollett could not immediately be reached for comment Friday. A spokeswoman for the actor said, “We would just like to focus on fact that the decision was split and Justice Lyle gave a very detailed analysis in favor of Smollett. And we will be taking this matter to the Supreme Court.”
In the 2-1 decision released Friday, Justices David Navarro and Mary Ellen Coghlan affirmed the conviction and said they did not find his sentence unreasonable.
“The record does not establish that Smollett entered into a nonprosecution agreement ... in exchange for his performance of community service and the forfeiture of his bond,” the opinion written by Navarro stated.
Justice Fredrenna Lyle dissented, writing: “Smollett did not enter into a plea agreement with the State, but a bilateral agreement took place, which bound the State, nonetheless. The majority contends that there is no evidence in the State’s agreement that the parties intended for the agreement to be tantamount to a dismissal with prejudice. I disagree.”
It wasn’t immediately clear when Smollett would have to return to complete his sentence.
