Hate crime or stunt? Chicago jury selection opens in Smollett trial

On a frigid Chicago night in January 2019, actor Jussie Smollett, a star on the TV drama Empire, reported that he was the victim of a hate-motivated street attack, but police later accused him of staging the whole affair as a publicity stunt.

A jury was being selected on Monday in Cook County Circuit Court for Smollett’s trial on six felony charges of disorderly conduct accusing him of making false reports to the police. The legal saga has dragged on in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Smollett, 39, has denied that he faked the attack, pleading not guilty in February 2020.

The openly gay Black actor told police he had been accosted on a darkened street by two masked strangers. According to Smollett’s account, his assailants threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of support for then-president Donald Trump.

A month later, police arrested him, accusing Smollett of paying two brothers US$3,500 to stage the attack in a hoax aimed at gaining public sympathy and raising his show-business profile.

Smollett’s acting career has faded since the incident. He lost his role as a singer-songwriter in the final season of Empire, a Fox television hip-hop drama that ended a five-year run in 2020.

His case took an unexpected turn in the spring of 2019 when the Cook County state’s attorney’s office dropped the 16-count indictment against him in exchange for forfeiting his US$10,000 bond without admitting wrongdoing.

The dismissal drew criticism from then-mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city’s police superintendent, who called the reversal a miscarriage of justice, leading a Cook County judge to appoint Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney, to review the case.

After a five-month investigation, Webb overruled the state’s attorney’s office and concluded that prosecution of Smollett was warranted, questioning the judgment of prosecutors in dropping the original case.

The current case against Smollett has been slowed by legal challenges and the pandemic.

Key trial testimony is expected from the brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who prosecutors have said were paid by Smollett to participate in a phoney attack. Smollett is not required to testify in his own defence.