(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The special prosecutor looking into the Cook County State’s Attorney’s handling of the Jussie Smollett case is elaborating on what he has already called “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures.”
Now that a judge has unsealed the full report by Special Prosecutor Dan Webb, the public is getting a look — bullet-point by bullet-point — at the Smollett case as originally handled by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office.
The 59-page report says Foxx herself told Webb that she was “surprised by and disagreed with” the terms that resolved Smollett’s case — terms many have compared to a slap on the wrist.
Webb’s report faults Foxx’s office for a false or misleading statement indicating the “Empire” co-star had no criminal background.
Also, the newly released report said it was not accurate for Foxx’s office to say the handling of the Smollett case was similar to 5,700 other cases resolved in the same way.
Webb ultimately revived disorderly conduct felony charges against Smollett. A jury this month convicted Smollett for staging a fake hate crime against himself in January 2019.
Upon Smollett's conviction on five of six counts of disorderly conduct, she said she hoped people could move on from the case.
In response to the Office of the Special Prosecutor's report Monday, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office issued a statement saying its prosecutors did nothing wrong:
“We respectfully disagree with the OSP’s findings of abuse of prosecutorial discretion. A prosecutor’s discretion is as broad as any in the law, and differences of opinion as to how a case was handled do not signify an abuse of discretion. Finally, it is important to emphasize that the OSP did not find any criminal activity or undue influence on the part of the State’s Attorney or the CCSAO.”
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