Convicted “hate crime” hoaxer Jussie Smollett was sentenced on Thursday after a jury found him guilty of orchestrating an attack against himself and making false police reports in an apparent attempt to gin up publicity and sympathy.
Judge James Linn sentenced Smollett to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation. He also ordered him to pay $120,000 in restitution and a $25,000 fine.
The disgraced actor had faced a maximum punishment of three years in prison, according to the New York Post.
He was convicted in December on five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct, a charge applied to filing fake police reports under Illinois law.
“I am innocent, and I am not suicidal,” Smollett said after receiving his sentence. “If I did this then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of the black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community.
“Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this. I am not suicidal, and if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself,” he said.
NOW – Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation for lying to police and staging hate crime.pic.twitter.com/d2vHelSBoz
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 11, 2022
Before sentencing, defense attorney Tina Glandian argued that Smollett’s case should have been dismissed due to errors made by the court.
Special prosecutor Sean Wieber dismissed those claims, accusing Smollett and his lawyers of pinning the blame for his conviction on everyone but themselves.
Smollett reportedly showed up late to a Chicago courthouse for his sentencing, with his bodyguards manhandling reporters outside the building.
Jussie Smollett’s bodyguards just roughed up reporters outside of a courthouse. pic.twitter.com/WHYV8Un0iZ
— Richard (@Wildman_AZ) March 10, 2022
Smollett claimed that he had been attacked in the dead of night by two men shouting racist and anti-gay slurs.
He alleged that the men wrapped a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach.
Smollett originally had his charges dropped, with a far-left Cook County prosecutor letting him off the hook for the false police reports that cost the Chicago Police Department hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A special prosecutor tasked with investigating Kim Foxx’s refusal to prosecute Smollett refiled the charges in 2020.
The Chicago Police Department is also suing Smollett to recoup the $130,000 it spent investigating his hoax.
