CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Lawyers for Jussie Smollett have asked an appeals court to release the former “Empire” actor from jail while he attempts to overturn his conviction for faking a hate crime.
Smollett on Thursday began a five-month stint in Cook County Jail, where his lawyers say he is being held in a “psych ward” and that “paperwork” on his cell door indicates he is at risk of self harm, according to a release from Smollett’s legal team.
In an emotional outburst after Judge James Linn announced Smollett would be taken to jail at the end of his sentencing hearing Thursday, the actor rose from his seat and announced repeatedly that he was “not suicidal.”
“And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that,” Smollett said before he led from the courtroom.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office said last week that Smollett will spend his time in jail in protective custody, alone in a cell monitored by security cameras and with a guard stationed at the cell door.
While the actor will have “substantial time” outside his cell and will be allowed to interact with staff and make phone calls, he will not mingle with other inmates. The treatment is standard for high-profile inmates at the jail, which houses around 6,000 detainees.
Smollett’s lawyers have filed a notice they intend to appeal the guilty verdict in Smollett’s trial and his sentence of 30 months of probation, with the first five months spent in Cook County Jail, as well as $140,000 in fines and restitution.
An emergency motion filed with the First District Court of Appeals asks the court to suspend his sentence or allow Smollett to go free on bond while his appeal works its way through the courts, noting that the actor would almost certainly have completed his jail sentence well before his appeal has been litigated. The motion also asks to delay payment of the fines.
The filing also states concerns about Smollett’s mental health if he is kept in protective custody within the jail and that he could face violence from other inmates.
Smollett has become a target of “vicious threats” online “which no doubt reflects the hatred and wish for physical harm towards Smollett which he may experience during incarceration,” the motion states.
A letter from a doctor states that Smollett has unnamed health issues that could put him at greater risk if he should contract COVID-19.
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The motion includes a long list of issues to be raised when his full appeal is filed, including that Special Prosecutor Dan Webb was improperly appointed after Smollett had reached a controversial deal with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office to dismiss the case shortly after he was charged in 2019.
Smollett was found guilty in December on five counts of disorderly conduct for making false statements to police when he reported he was the victim of a hate crime attack near his Streeterville apartment in 2019. The case attracted international attention, with the openly gay, Black actor days after he was assaulted giving an interview on Good Morning America that included a tearful account of being attacked by two white men who shouted racist and homophobic slurs as they hit him and looped a noose around his neck.
A massive Chicago Police investigation that ensued eventually determined that Smollett hired his personal trainer and the trainer’s brother, both of whom are Black, to stage the attack as a publicity stunt.
Veteran defense attorney Richard Kling said that appeal bonds are relatively rare and are granted only when issues raised for an appeal seem strong enough to overturn a conviction.
“In the best of times, and that was before COVID, an appeal takes 18 months to two years, so he certainly would have completed the jail portion of his sentence by then,” Kling said.
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(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2022. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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