SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction on charges of staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself in 2019 and lying to Chicago police, saying he should not have been charged a second time after reaching a deal with prosecutors.
The ruling, which did not address Smollett’s continued claims of innocence, was the latest twist in a yearslong saga. Smollett, who is Black and gay, made headlines around the world after he told police in January 2019 that two men assaulted him in his downtown Chicago neighborhood, spouting slurs, tossing a noose around his neck, and yelling that he was in “MAGA country,” an apparent reference to Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” presidential campaign slogan. The report prompted a massive search for suspects by Chicago police before investigators announced that they believed the attack was a hoax.
The state’s highest court found that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene after Smollett reached a deal with the Cook County state’s attorney in which charges against him were dropped in exchange for him forfeiting his $10,000 bond and performing community service. The deal prompted outrage in part because it did not include any condition that Smollett apologize or admit he staged the attack.
“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” Justice Elizabeth Rochford wrote in the court’s 5-0 opinion. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the state was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.”
Smollett was on the television drama “Empire,” which filmed in Chicago, and prosecutors alleged he staged the attack because he was unhappy with the studio’s response to hate mail he received. Testimony at trial indicated he paid $3,500 to two men whom he knew from “Empire” to carry it out. Smollett testified that “there was no hoax” and that he was the victim of a hate crime.