CHICAGO — A judge sentenced Jussie Smollett to 150 days in jail Thursday, branding the Black and gay actor a charlatan for staging a hate crime against himself while the nation struggled with wrenching issues of racial injustice.
Smollett replied by insisting that he was innocent and suggesting that he may be put to death in prison.
The sentence and Smollett’s post-hearing outburst capped an hourslong hearing and more than three years of legal drama following Smollett’s claim that he had been the target of a racist and homophobic attack.
Smollett didn’t make a statement when offered the opportunity earlier in the afternoon, saying he was listening to his attorneys’ advice. Smollett took off the mask that he had worn throughout the hearing in order to declare his innocence after Cook County Judge James Linn made the sentencing determination.
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He also loudly insisted that he was not suicidal, suggesting that “if anything happens” in jail, he did not take his own life.
“If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of Black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBT community,” Smollett said, standing up at the defense table as his lawyers and sheriff’s deputies surrounded him. “Your Honor, I respect you and I respect the jury but I did not do this. But I’m not suicidal. If anything does happen to me, it is not my fault. And you must all know that.”
Smollett yelled at the deputies as they led him out of courtroom.
“I am innocent,” he yelled, raising his fist. “I could have said I am guilty a long time ago.”
Smollett was sentenced to 30 months of probation for felony offenses, plus five months in prison. He also had to pay $120,106 in restitution and $25,000 in fine to Chicago.
Special prosecutor Dan Webb asked Linn to include “an appropriate amount of prison time” when sentencing the actor for his conviction on five counts of disorderly conduct.
“His conduct denigrated hate crimes,” Webb said after the hearing. “His conduct will discourage others who are victims of hate crimes from coming forward and reporting those crimes to law enforcement.”
Smollett’s attorneys wanted the judge to limit the sentence to community service, arguing that he had already been punished by the criminal justice system and damage to his career.
These comments were echoed by family members.
“I ask you, judge, not to send him to prison,” his grandmother, 92-year-old Molly Smollett, told the court. She later added, “If you do, send me along with him, OK?”
Smollett’s attorneys also read aloud letters from other supporters, including the president of the NAACP, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and LaTanya and Samuel L. Jackson that asked Linn to consider the case’s effect on Smollett’s life and career.
Several supporters spoke about worries that Smollett would be at risk in prison, specifically mentioning his race, sexual orientation and his family’s Jewish heritage.
Linn said he did consider those requests for mercy, along with Smollett’s prior work and financial support of social justice organizations. But Linn also excoriated Smollett as a narcissist and pronounced himself astounded by his actions given the actor’s multiracial family background and ties to social justice work.
“The damage you’ve done to yourself is way beyond anything else than can happen to you from me,” Linn said. “You are now a permanently convicted felon.”
Smollett’s attorney Nenye Uche said he will ask the jail to keep Smollett in protective custody and plans to appeal both the verdict and the judge’s sentence.
Uche said he didn’t expect Linn to include jail time but Smollett did.
“He said: ‘Because I’m a Black guy, no matter how successful I’ve gotten, I’m Black,’” Uche told reporters after the hearing.
A spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said Smollett will have a comprehensive medical, mental health and security assessment, a routine process.
Before the sentencing portion of the hearing began, Linn rejected a motion from the defense to overturn the jury’s verdict on legal grounds. These motions are rare and rarely granted by judges.
Smollett faced up to three years in prison for each of the five felony counts of disorderly conduct — the charge filed for lying to police — of which he was convicted. A sixth count was dropped.
However, Smollett has a clean criminal record and is being convicted of a nonviolent low-level crime. Experts didn’t expect that he would go to prison.
Thursday’s sentencing could be the final chapter in a criminal case, subject to appeal, that made international headlines when Smollett reported to police that two men wearing ski masks beat him, and hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him on a dark Chicago street and ran off.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx also came under fire for her office’s decision to drop its initial charges against Smollett. On Thursday, Foxx blasted a “relentless, organized and effective” push to pursue Smollett while other serious crimes went unsolved or unresolved.
“Just because we do not like the outcome should not mean we bully prosecutors and circumvent the judicial process to get it changed,” Foxx wrote in a column published by the Chicago Sun-Times. “Smollett was indicted, tried and convicted by a kangaroo prosecution in a matter of months.”
Smollett was convicted by special prosecutors who were appointed by the court. Smollett was also accompanied by two brothers, who testified that he paid them to attack them, provided them with money to purchase ski masks and ropes, and told them how to turn the rope into an oblique. Prosecutors said he told them what racist and homophobic slurs to shout, and to yell that Smollett was in “MAGA Country,” a reference to the campaign slogan of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Smollett, who knew the men from his work on the television show “Empire” that filmed in Chicago, testified that he did not recognize them and did not know they were the men attacking him.
Unlike the trial, Linn agreed to let photographers and a television camera inside court for the hearing — meaning the public got to see and hear Smollett speak in court for the first time.
