Jussie Smollett found guilty of faking hate crime against himself

A jury has found the Empire actor Jussie Smollett guilty of faking a hate crime against himself to raise his celebrity profile.

The Chicago jury, which deliberated for more than nine hours, found Smollett guilty of five charges of disorderly conduct. He was acquitted on a sixth count, of lying to a detective in mid-February, weeks after Smollett said he was attacked.

Smollett told police that he had been assaulted on a darkened street by two masked men. According to Smollett, his assailants put a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressing their support for Trump.

But a month later police arrested Smollett himself, accusing the actor of paying two brothers $3,500 to stage the assault in a ploy to get public sympathy and boost his show-business profile.

The verdict came after a roughly one-week trial in which two brothers testified that Smollett recruited them to fake an attack on him near his home in downtown Chicago in January 2019. Smollett repeatedly denied the claims.

The brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, said Smollett orchestrated the hoax, telling them to put a noose around his neck and rough him up in view of a surveillance camera, and that he said he wanted video of the hoax made public via social media.

Abimbola Osundairo, who worked with Smollett on the Chicago set of Empire, and his brother also testified that Smollett paid them $3,500 for faking the attack.

Smollett said the money allegedly paid for the attack was in fact for meal and workout plans that Abimbola Osundairo was providing so the actor could be more toned for upcoming performances.

The 29 January assault was reported to police, prompting a massive investigation that a lead detective said included some two-dozen officers and 3,000 staff hours. The investigation which included video from surveillance cameras, GPS and taxi and rideshare records led police to the Osundairo brothers, who told detectives Smollett had staged the alleged hate crime.