On Thursday, actor Jussie Smollett was found guilty of five felonies, which involved him faking a hate crime that targeted himself.
Smollett was convicted on five class four felonies for lying to police about being attacked by Trump supporters.
Count 1 accused him of telling responding Chicago Police Officer Muhammed Baig at around 2:45 a.m., some 45 minutes after the purported attack, that he was the victim of a hate crime. He said two attackers put a rope around his neck. Count 2 referred to Smollett telling the same officer he was a victim of a battery, describing attackers beating and pouring bleach on him.
Counts 3 and 4 stemmed from Smollett making the same claims but to a different officer, Kimberly Murray, later that morning, just before 6 a.m.
Count 5 accused Smollett of again telling Murray at around 7:15 p.m. that he was the victim of a battery. Count 6 referred to Smollett reporting on Feb. 14, 2019, to detective Robert Graves that he’d been a victim of an aggravated battery.
Smollett’s lawyer, Nenye Uche, responded to the conviction saying, “We feel 100 percent confident that this case will be won on appeal. Unfortunately, that’s not the route we wanted but sometimes that’s the route you have to take to win, especially a case where we remain 100 percent confident in our client’s innocence.”
Uche went on to say, “He’s a human being; he’s disappointed — but I will tell you this: I am very proud of him. I’m very, very proud of him. He’s holding up very strong; he’s committed to clearing his name and he’s 100 percent confident that he’s going to get cleared by the appellate court.”
“Jussie was not accused of doing two different things and he was accused of doing one thing, and charged multiple times for the same incident, a jury cannot come out and say guilty of lying, but not guilty of lying. It doesn’t make sense.”
Uche concluded his statements saying, “But we are confident in our appellate system, we’re confident in our Illinois Supreme Court and we’re confident that at the end of the day, what’s out there in the news media, and in the gossip forums are not going to stand a chance in court.”
