‘Empire’ Jussie Smollett leaves jail after six days for posting bail

Actor Jussie Smollett, 39, star of the series “Empire: Fame and Power” (2015–2020) was released from a Chicago prison after six days, despite having been sentenced to five months in prison for allegedly forging a homophobic and racist attack against he.

According to the North American website Hollywood Life, Smollett had his sentence completed by posting a bond of US$ 150,000, the equivalent of just over R$ 760,000. The international press claims that the artist left the Cook County Penitentiary in Chicago, escorted by five security guards.

Smollett did not respond to questions from journalists waiting for him at the scene. In addition to the sentence, the actor will spend 30 months on probation. He had to repay Chicago’s public coffers a total of US$ 120,000 (about R$ 610,000) spent on the investigations of the crimes and another US$ 25,000 in fines, about R$ 127,000.

During his trial, the artist insisted he was innocent. “If I did this, it means I got my fist into the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years in this country and in the years of the LGBT community… do this to myself and you all should know this,” he said at the time. .

The allegedly faked attacks would have taken place in 2019, when Smollett claimed that he suffered a hate crime by two supporters of former US President Donald Trump, who attacked him on a subway in Chicago.

However, he was accused of paying US$3,500 (approximately R$17,800) for the men to attack him. The artist’s pen came to be criticized on social media, and Smollett gained the support of other artists such as Samuel L. Jackson.

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.

The actor was even placed in the psychiatric ward of the Cook County Jail. According to his brother, this was because official sentencing documents said Smollett was at risk of injury, but after pressure from social media he was removed from the ward.