Jussie Smollett, 39, believes the reason he was sentenced to prison is because he is black. Sources close to the actor told TMZ that he already expected to be convicted, and that he had told the defense team before sentencing that he thought he would be treated more severely than other defendants convicted of a non-violent crime such as him, because of his skin color.
Smollett, who was part of the cast of the series “Empire”, was sentenced this week to 150 days in prison when he was found guilty of fabricating a hate crime against himself in 2019. In court, he cried and protested after the sentence was revealed.
The actor will still have to pay the equivalent of BRL 600,000 to Chicago authorities and a fine of BRL 125,000. In addition, he will have to serve 30 months of probation.
According to Deadline, as the sentence was read and officers prepared to take him to the Cook County Jail, Smollett took off his mask, stood up and repeatedly said, “I’m not suicidal.”
He even gave a warning: “If anything happens to me there [na cadeia], I did not do. I’m not suicidal, I’m innocent,” she said.
The judge in the case was quite blunt with the actor, speaking directly to him and saying that he had turned his “life upside down through his misconduct and antics” and after “falsifying racial and homophobic hate crimes”.
The judge also called him “selfish, arrogant and narcissistic” for his “premeditated” actions. “You are just a charlatan, pretending to be the victim of a hate crime,” concluded the judge.
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