On Sept. 17, attorneys for embattled actor Jussie Smollett asked the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn a jury’s 2021 guilty verdict that found the actor staged a hoax when he claimed to Chicago police that he was the victim of a hate crime, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.
During the actor’s trial, special prosecutors accused Smollett of staging the 2019 attack in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood because he was unhappy with his salary for his role on the hit television show Empire and was attempting to launch a music career. The jury found Smollett guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct, and he was sentenced to 30 months of probation, with the first 150 days to be served at Cook County Jail.
At the heart of the actor’s argument is whether the Cook County state’s attorney’s office had earlier entered into a binding agreement not to prosecute Smollett because he voluntarily agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service.
In 2023, a divided appellate court panel affirmed the actor’s conviction in a 2-1 decision after considering similar arguments.
Recently, before screening his latest movie, The Lost Holliday, at D.C.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Smollett continued to profess his innocence, according to The Washington Blade.