Embattled actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months' probation Thursday for falsely reporting to police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in 2019.
"You're just a charlatan pretending to be a victim of a hate crime," Cook County Circuit Judge James Linn told Smollett while announcing the sentence in Chicago.
Smollett responded by repeating, "I am not suicidal!" He said he was innocent and that "if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself," referring to jail.
March 10, 202202:04
Smollett, 39, the former star of "Empire," was found guilty by a Chicago jury in December of five counts of felony disorderly conduct. He was found not guilty of the sixth charge, aggravated battery.
The charges stemmed from a January 2019 report in which Smollett, who is Black and gay, alleged that he had been brutally assaulted in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.
He said two men punched and kicked him, used racist and homophobic slurs, threw a chemical in his face and wrapped a noose around his neck.
The police investigation led to the arrests of Olabingo Osundairo and his brother Abimbola, who worked on the set of "Empire."
They were eventually released, and Smollett was arrested Feb. 21, 2019, after authorities accused him of recruiting the brothers to stage the attack.
Police said at the time that Smollett orchestrated the phony...
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