Jussie Smollett ends 2019 hate-crime hoax saga with $50K charity donation

Daily Mail​

24-05-2025

has settled with the city of Chicago over the 2019 'hate crime ' hoax furor.
The disgraced actor agreed to pay $50,000 to charity, six years after the city's law department first began pursuing him over the allegedly staged attack.
Smollet was convicted in December 2021 of lying to police about an alleged homophobic attack by two men wearing MAGA hats.
The former Empire actor's conviction was overturned l ast year due to a due process violation.
The city of Chicago's Law Department filed a civil lawsuit against him in 2019 to recover more than $130,000 in costs incurred investigating his allegedly staged attack, after he failed to meet a city-imposed payment deadline.
The terms of his settlement require that Smollett, 42, pays $50,000 to a charity of his choice, instead of paying the six-figures in restitution for the investigation, as per TMZ.
Smollett has already chosen his charity, and donated the $50,000 to the Building Better Futures Center for the Arts organization in Chicago.
A judge has yet to sign off to make it official.
Building Better Futures Center for the Arts provides mental health support, art, music, and acting training for underprivileged youth in Chicago.
Smollett had his conviction for lying to the police with a bizarre anti-Trump hoax overturned in a sensational ruling from the Illinois Supreme Court last November.
The court found that the actor had his rights violated by a special prosecutor's decision to retry him after initial charges against him were dropped with an agreement that he would not be re-charged.
He was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months' probation after it was proven that he fabricated the episode, and he was also slapped with a fine of $130,160.
Smollett appealed the ruling and has not yet served a day of that sentence behind bars, even after his conviction was previously affirmed by a lower court in 2023 before the Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.
The actor's hoax and later arrest sparked a media firestorm years ago, as it was found he had actually paid two Nigerian brothers - Abel and Ola Osundairo - to stage the incident.
When Smollett first came forward with his story, the actor was met with widespread support, and the Chicago PD vowed to swiftly find his attackers. Smollett even showed police the noose that he claimed he was almost lynched with.
Although Smollett claimed he was attacked by two white Trump supporters, detectives reviewed surveillance footage and zeroed in on the Osundairo brothers as suspects.
When presented with a grainy surveillance picture of the brothers near the scene, Smollett said they were 'absolutely' the men who attacked him, not realizing they had already been arrested.
One of his attorneys, Tina Glandian, claimed that Smollett may have misidentified the brothers - who he had also just been on the phone with moments before - because they could have been 'in disguise' in white makeup.
She went on to point to a 2016 YouTube video of Abel Osundairo, the brother in question, where he is wearing white make-up to perform a Joker monologue for Halloween as proof of her theory.
By that time, stories had leaked that detectives believed Smollett had concocted the story, seemingly in an attempt boost his public profile.
Smollett went on Good Morning America to tearfully insist he was the victim, but by February 2019, a month after the incident, he was arrested and charged with filing a false police report, and his character from Empire was halted.
However, despite a grand jury indicting him for repeatedly lying to cops, the charges against Smollett were then sensationally dropped a month later in March, sparking outrage from the public.
President Trump led the backlash as he decried the charges being dropped as an 'embarrassment to the nation,' while Chicago Police Chief Eddie Johnson, who is Black, said at the time: 'Jussie Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career.'
The Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, said it amounted to a 'whitewash of justice' that proved Smollett was treated gently by the system because he is a celebrity and a prominent figure in the city.
After he was fined $140,000 for wasting police resources, a special prosecutor was named to investigate why the charges against Smollett were dropped.
It was this decision that has now led to Smollett's ultimate conviction to be overturned, as it was found his rights were violated because Smollett had agreed with prosecutors that he would not be re-charged at the time after the case against him was dropped.
In February 2020 Smollett was indicted again on felony lying to police, and following a contentious trial where he maintained his innocence, Smollett was convicted at the conclusion of his trial in 2021.
Smollett again sparked a backlash during his conviction hearing, as he triumphantly raised his fist to appear defiant, despite being caught in a lie.
When the Illinois Supreme Court handed down the ruling to overturn that conviction, Chief Justice Theis and Justice Cunningham recused themselves from the decision.
The court's opinion pointed to the agreement Smollett had with Illinois prosecutors after his charges were dropped.
'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,' the opinion read.
'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 is known for his role as Jamal Lyon on the Fox drama series Empire, where he starred from 2015 to 2019.