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 The indictment, returned by a Cook County grand jury on Thursday
and made public on Friday, greatly expands on the legal jeopardy
faced by Smollett, whose story of being attacked in Chicago by
supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump has drawn suspicion
since it first surfaced in late January.
Smollett, 36, who is black and openly gay and plays a gay
musician on the Fox network hip-hop drama "Empire," was charged
last month in a single-count criminal complaint with making a
false report to police, defined under Illinois law as a form of
disorderly conduct.
The new indictment in the case contains 16 similar counts: eight
related to his interview with one police officer on the day of
the purported attack and eight more stemming from his interview
with another officer the same day.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison
and a $25,000 fine.
Smollett's attorney, Mark Geragos, blasted the indictment in a
statement as "redundant and vindictive," adding that his client
"adamantly maintains his innocence even if law enforcement has
robbed him of that presumption."
He also said that leveling charges in an indictment spares
prosecutors the need to submit evidence and witnesses to defense
cross-examination in a preliminary hearing, where a judge
decides if sufficient cause exists for the case to proceed to
trial.
At the time he was initially charged two weeks ago, Chicago
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Smollett had paid two
brothers $35,000 to stage an assault on him in a hoax
orchestrated to somehow further his acting career.
NO FURTHER ARREST
Smollett has remained free on $100,000 bond since his release
hours after surrendering to authorities on Feb. 21. He already
was scheduled to return to court on March 14. In the meantime,
there is no warrant for his arrest in connection with this
week's indictment "because it's the same case," Chicago police
spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told Reuters.
No mention is made in the indictment of Smollett's claim,
according to police, that his attackers yelled, "This is MAGA
country," referring to Trump's "Make America Great Again"
slogan, as they accosted him.
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But the 16-page document includes other elements of the account that
Smollett had stood by for weeks.
According to previous police recitations of Smollett's story, he
reported that two masked men approached him on the street in the
early hours of Jan. 29 shouting racial and homophobic slurs, struck
him in the face, doused him with an "unknown chemical substance" and
wrapped a rope around his neck before they fled.
News of the assault spread quickly on social media, with many
expressing outrage while others wondered whether the story was
fabricated even as Chicago police insisted their detectives were
treating the matter seriously.
In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" days before he was
charged, Smollett said he was angry that some people questioned his
story, and he suggested the disbelief might come from racial bias.
His attorneys said after his arrest on Feb. 21 they were conducting
a thorough investigation for purposes of mounting the actor's
defense.
Smollett himself, according to reports in media citing unnamed
sources, apologized last month to the cast and crew on the set of
"Empire" but maintained his innocence.
The release of the indictment came after the Chicago Police
Department said it started an internal investigation into how
information about the alleged hate crime against Smollett was
anonymously leaked to reporters.
Geragos said the indictment was designed, in part, "to distract from
the internal investigation."
"Empire" debuted on Fox in 2015 and has earned multiple Emmy
nominations. Smollett plays the character Jamal Lyon, a member of
the family that is the focus of the drama. Producers said in
February they were removing his character from the final two
episodes of the show's current season.
(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; additional reporting by
Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles;
writing by Steve Gorman; editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)
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