"WE FIND THE DEFENDANT, JUSSIE SMOLLETT, GUILTY!"


Jussie Smollet, former child actor in "Mighty Ducks" and more recently one of many stars in the popular Fox series "Empire," was convicted of five counts of disorderly conduct, a class 4 felony in the State of Illinois, on Thursday, December 9, 2021.  He had filed five false police reports, hence the five counts upon which he was convicted.

The counts were all similar, all based upon interviews by police detectives.  

What many people forget is that these incidents happened in the heat of a  presidential campaign, February 14, 2019.  Initially, after gaining a lot of publicity for himself, no charges were brought, even as evidence that Mr. Smollett faked the whole incident and had caused the Chicago police to chase ghosts for weeks, claiming he was attacked by Trump supporters who hated him because he was black and gay.   

It was an attempt by Mr. Smollett to rally support for himself by slandering a presidential candidate, and for a time it appeared nothing was going to be done to rectify this outrageous conduct.  Some sources say he was trying to negotiate a higher salary when this occurred.  When it became public that Cook County Prosecutor Kim Foxx had spoken with a member of Smollett's family and was acting somewhat as a "go-between" to possibly work something out between Smollett and the Chicago Police Department, which had spent over $100,000 chasing a non-existent assailant, Ms. Foxx recused herself from the case.  

Lawyers are required to step aside from cases in which they appear to have a conflict of interest.

With Foxx gone, attorney Dan Webb was appointed to investigate and prosecute the case.  Kudos to Mr. Webb for taking this case and doing his job instead of just seeking a sum of money to satisfy the police department for their trouble.  Without Dan Webb sticking to his guns here, Mr. Smollett might have paid off the Chicago PD and walked away with his reputation intact, and his supporters continuing to believe that racist and anti-gay Trump supporters had, indeed, mercilessly attacked him.

What next?

First, Smollett will have a date set for his sentencing.  His crimes, though felonies,  are "low-level" felonies and no one expects Mr. Smollett to go to prison. 

Is this one set of rules for the rich and famous, and another set of rules for John Q. Public?  No.  For someone with no criminal history, committing a non-violent crime that does not involve drugs, probation is the rule, not the exception.  Just as it would not be right to give Mr. Smollett a lighter sentence just because he is wealthy and famous, neither would it be fair to give him an unusually harsh sentence for those reasons.  

I would also comment that we have all heard the tired phrase, "he has suffered enough," as an excuse to dodge punishment.  In this case, though, I have to agree this man has suffered enough.  As sure as the doctor who set the infamous John Wilkes Boothe's broken leg after Lincoln's assassination, Smollett's name is Mudd.  He lost a plum job as a leading actor on Fox's most popular TV series. Reports say he was making as much as $125,000 per episode. Since his appearances on the last 2 episodes of the fifth season were canceled, it appears he lost $250,000 for his conduct. "Empire" runs 18 episodes per season, meaning that canceling Smollett's character out of the sixth season of the show cost Smollett as much as $2,250,000.  Additionally, it appears most other employment opportunities are shut down for him, as his name is synonymous with being a fraud. 

The criminal justice system, by incarcerating him, will not teach him a greater lesson or cause him more pain than he has suffered by these crimes.  He has destroyed a very profitable career.

I would put this man on suicide watch; his fall from grace is that severe.

This said, he next will face a civil suit for $130,000 from the Chicago Police Department for the weeks they wasted chasing Smollett's non-existent assailants.  With Smollett having been convicted of staging his beating, it should be a rather easy case to prove, and this case should settle out of court.

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