Actor Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 30 months felony probation in the January 2019 hate crime a jury determined he staged. An Illinois judge also fined Smollett $25,000 and ordered the actor to pay just over $120,000 restitution to the city of Chicago. The judge ordered Smollett to spend the first 150 days of his sentence in the Cook County Jail.
Smollett returned to court on Thursday (March 10) after being convicted in December 2021 of lying to police, filing false police reports in an attack the actor told authorities was motivated by his race and sexual orientation. A nearly six-hour sentencing hearing included several character statements from Jussie’s families members, community organizations including the NAACP, and celebrities from Alfre Woodard and LaTanya and Samuel L. Jackson.
During the December trial, prosecutors called two brothers, Ola and Abel Osundairo, to testify in the trial, in which they revealed they knew Smollett from their work on the hit show Empire. They testified that Smollett did a “run through” of the attack and paid them for their actions.
Smollett continued to deny the claims in court before being convicted and after being sentenced.
Before being taken away to jail for the first part of his sentence, Smollett repeated that “I am not suicidal,” after the judge’s remarks.
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