Smollett case resembles detailed movie script

Associated Press

CHICAGO

As authorities laid out their case against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, the narrative that emerged Thursday sounded like that of a filmmaker who wrote, cast, directed and starred in a short movie.

Prosecutors said Smollett gave detailed instructions to the accomplices who helped him stage a racist, anti-gay attack on himself, including telling them specific slurs to yell, urging them to shout “MAGA country” and even pointing out a surveillance camera that he thought would record the beating.

“I believe Mr. Smollett wanted it on camera,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters. “But, unfortunately, that particular camera wasn’t pointed in that direction.”

Police said Smollett planned the hoax because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career. Before the attack, he also sent a letter that threatened him to the Chicago studio where “Empire” is shot, police said.

Smollett, who is black and gay, turned himself in on charges that he filed a false police report last month when he said he was attacked in downtown Chicago by two masked men who hurled derogatory remarks and looped a rope around his neck.

The actor “took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career,” Johnson said.

“This publicity stunt was a scar that Chicago didn’t earn and certainly didn’t deserve,” Johnson added.

The attack reverberated well beyond Chicago and swiftly took on political overtones, with liberals calling it a shocking example of Trump-era hate. Republicans seized on the criminal charges as proof that Democrats had rushed to judgment and unfairly disparaged the president’s supporters as bigots.

At Smollett’s first court appearance, one of his attorneys, Jack Prior, told the judge that the actor maintains “these are outrageous allegations” and denies they are true.

Prosecutors released a four-page document that outlined their case against Smollett, who plays a gay character on the show that follows a black family as they navigate the ups and downs of the recording industry.

For the alleged hoax, Smollett solicited the help of two muscular brothers. One of them was Abindola “Abel” Osundairo, a friend he worked out with and who worked on the show as a stand-in for another character.

He also supplied Smollett with the drug ecstasy, prosecutors said.

A few days before Osundairo and his brother, Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo, were scheduled to fly to Nigeria, Smollett sent him a text that prosecutors said set the scheme in motion.

“Might need your help on the low,” he wrote his friend, according to the document.

During a meeting with the brothers, Smollett told them he wanted the attack to happen Jan. 28 near his apartment in the city’s Streeterville neighborhood, and that he wanted them to get his attention by calling out slurs, prosecutors said. He is accused of instructing them to put the rope around his neck, pour gasoline on him and yell the MAGA remark, an apparent reference to President Donald Trump’s slogan during the 2016 campaign.