|
 The indictment, capping a five-month special prosecutor's probe,
accuses Smollett, who is black and openly gay, of making four
separate false reports to Chicago police related to his account
of being the victim of a violent hate crime.
Smollett's lawyer, Tina Glandian, said the special prosecutor's
use of police detectives who took part in the original
investigation of her client raised "serious questions about the
integrity" of his renewed prosecution.
The previous charges "were appropriately dismissed the first
time because they were not supported by the evidence," Glandian
said. The attempt to prosecute Smollett anew ahead of the Cook
County state's attorney primary election next month "is clearly
all about politics, not justice," she said.
Smollett, 37, has insisted he told the truth when he reported
that he was accosted on the street in January 2019 by two masked
men who threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on
him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of
support for President Donald Trump.
But police arrested Smollett a month later, accusing the actor
of paying two brothers $3,500 to stage the attack in an effort
to use the notoriety to advance his career.
The dismissal of the original case on March 26, 2019, three
weeks after Smollett was first charged in a 16-count indictment,
drew an outcry from then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city's
police superintendent, who branded the reversal a miscarriage of
justice.
[to top of second column] |
At the time the state's attorney's office said its decision to drop
the charges as part of an agreement with Smollett to forfeit his
$10,000 bond was a just outcome. But Cook County Judge Michael
Toomin later appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb as a special
prosecutor to review the case.
A Cook County grand jury returned the new indictment after the
special prosecutor found "reasonable grounds exist to further
prosecute Mr. Smollett," Webb said in a statement released in
conjunction with the indictment.
Webb said he has yet to reach a conclusion as to whether local
prosecutors or anyone else involved in the case engaged in
wrongdoing, saying that aspect of his inquiry was continuing.
The actor, who played a singer-songwriter on the Fox television
hip-hop drama "Empire" before he was dropped from the show, sued the
city of Chicago in November, accusing municipal officials of
maliciously prosecuting him.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Additional reporting by
Karen Pierog in Chicago and Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles; Writing
and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by
Cynthia Osterman and Leslie Adler)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
