Jussie Smollett has been jailed for 150 days after being found guilty of staging a hoax hate crime.
The former Empire star was found guilty on five of the six charges he faced for lying about the attack, while prosecutors claimed he staged the incident in a bid to help his career.
In January 2019, the TV star had filed police reports alleging he was set upon by two assailants in Chicago, where Smollett claimed the pair tied a noose around his neck in a racist and homophobic attack.
As the sentence was handed down in a Cook County courtroom in Chicago on Thursday, the 39-year-old actor told the court: ‘Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this.
‘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.’
Along with the custodial sentence, Jussie was given 30 months of felony probation and ordered to pay $120,106 in restitution and a $25,000 fine.
The judge James Linn labelled the actor a ‘charlatan’ and insisted he had done harm to real victims of hate crimes, many who may be too frightened to come forward and tell the authorities.
The judge also expressed fears people might be reluctant to believe other stories of real injustices, saying Smollett had committed ‘hour upon hour of perjury’ while ‘lying’ while testifying on the stand.
Earlier in the day, Linn denied Smollett’s attorney’s motion for a retrial.
‘We have been talking about this for two years now,’ he said. ‘I do believe at the end of the day, Mr Smollett received a fair trial and was proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt by the jury.’
Throughout the trial, the Mighty Ducks star maintained his innocence and fought against the allegations that he had hired brothers Abel and Bola Osundairo to help stage the attack.
Last December, he was found guilty on five counts related to giving a false report to police on the day of the alleged attack.
However, he was found not guilty on the sixth count of giving a false report to police at a later date, after the incident.
His lawyer, Nenye Uche, added after his client was found guilty: ’The verdict is inconsistent. You can’t say Jussie is lying and say Jussie is not lying for the same exact incident.
In February, Jussie filed the papers to initiate a new trial, citing that his lawyers had not been able to assist in the picking of the jury.
In addition, he asked the judge to reverse the verdict, and has been involved in a civil case related to the incident.
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In a rare move for a defence, Smollett took to the stand during the two-week trial last year, where he rejected earlier testimony from Nigerian-born brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo who said he had planned the attack himself and paid them $3,500 (£2,600) to carry it out.
The actor told the court he ‘never’ paid the pair for the alleged scheme, claiming the cheque was for a meal and workout plan for while he was going to be travelling.
He maintained to the court: ‘There was no hoax,’ claiming he was attacked while returning home after buying a Subway sandwich.
Smollett claimed that he was attacked by a ‘massive’ man wearing a ski mask, who he assumed was white as they used a racial slur and shouted about him being in ‘Maga country,’ in reference to then-President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan
He alleged that the pair then put something around his neck, which he later realised when he arrived home was a noose.
The brothers, however, claim that Smollett had planned the attack and instructed them to shout about ‘Maga country’ while they roughed him up.
Smollett rose to fame in the hit TV series Empire, alongside Terrence Howard and Taraji P Henson. His character was axed from the series in 2019 following the allegations.
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