Jussie Smollett found guilty of staging hate crime | WORLD
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Jussie Smollett found guilty of staging hate crime


A Chicago jury concluded on Thursday that actor Jussie Smollett faked a 2019 hate crime against himself to raise his celebrity profile. He was convicted on five counts of disorderly conduct for making false police reports and acquitted on a sixth count. Judge James Linn scheduled Smollett’s post-trial hearing for Jan. 27 and said he would set the sentencing for a later date. Experts say Smollett will likely be sentenced to probation or community service due to his lack of criminal history.

What was the case about? In January 2019, Smollett claimed he was beaten up by men shouting racist and anti-gay slurs. Police said the 39-year-old hired two brothers to fake the attack, triggering an investigation that involved about two dozen police officers. The brothers testified during the trial that Smollett paid them $3,500 and gave them lines to yell. His attorney said he would appeal Thursday’s conviction.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archive, read Lynde Langdon’s report in Muse about some of the effects of the Smollett case on race relations.


Onize Oduah

Onize is WORLD’s Africa reporter and deputy global desk chief. She is a World Journalism Institute graduate and earned a journalism degree from Minnesota State University–Moorhead. Onize resides in Abuja, Nigeria.

@onize_ohiks


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My Two Cents

“His attorney said he would appeal Thursday’s conviction.”
Well, of course. Obviously the judge and jury are all homophobic racists. Let’s drag out a non-crime, make it an appeal-able case, and then suffer a victim’s fate forever to prove that society is unsympathetic to his plight. As I might say to my complaining children, “Poor baby.”

BFRA3599

The new low reached in our culture (first introduced by the Clintons) is to lie with gusto and endurance. God help us.

SAWGUNNER

From the minute I first heard this story I accurately called it a big load of hokey horse-hockey nonsense. I'm no MAGA dude. I do however know a few. They emphatically DO NOT go out into the cold dark night of Chicago winters at 2am. Not to get a foot long sandwich and not to attack otherwise little known gay black actors. [I had never heard of this man til I heard him mentioned in a
Dave Chapelle comic monologue] In fact by 2am most MAGA folks are snoozing in bed about to wake up in another 3 or 4 hours to put on boots and head off to work. Memorandum to all future "hate crime" fakers: make sure the perps you hire to be the bad racist white men are actually white