On Thursday, three months after a jury found him guilty of lying to police about an attack prosecutors contended he orchestrated himself, Jussie Smollet a one-time star of the television show “Empire,” will be sentenced.
The brothers testified that Smollett gave them money to buy the rope they were to fashion into a noose around his neck and the ski masks to hide their faces. He then pointed them to where he wanted the scene to play out in the hopes it would be captured by a surveillance camera.
A key question is whether Special Prosecutor Dan Webb will ask Linn to sentence Smollett to jail or prison. Webb, in an interview with The Associated Press, would not say. “Somebody from the CPD can testify how this crime directly impacted the police department, diverted resources away from actual crimes and the cost the city incurred,” said Joe McMahon, who as a special prosecutor won a murder conviction for Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke in the 2014 fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald.
Experts say it is almost certain that Smollett will speak. He could cover the same ground as he did during the trial inwhich he testified about his extensive involvement in charity organizations, including a group that fights AIDS in the Black community. He might again speak of how he's already been punished, that his career has been devastated.
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