An independent lawyer appointed by court on Monday found Chicago prosecutors abused their discretion and may have violated legal ethics by prosecuting former ‘Empire’ actor Jussie Smollett falsely reporting that he was being attacked.
The allegations are the latest twist in a dizzying swirl of claims and counter-claims in the case that began in January 2019 when Smollett, who is black and gay, told police he was charged on a dark street in a hate crime by two masked strangers.
Smollett was initially charged with a 16-count charge of falsifying the incident. But the Cook County State Attorney’s Office dismissed the case three weeks later on March 26, 2019, and made a call from police and city officers.
In his report, the lawyer, former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb, dismissed the state’s law firm from any criminal activity as allegations that it was responding to outside outside influence when it dropped the hoax charges against Smollett.
However, Webb’s report said he “developed evidence that substantial abuse of discretion and operational failures instituted by the (State’s Attorney’s Office) in prosecuting and resolving the first Smollett case.”
Webb also said that state attorneys, including state attorney Kim Foxx, who denied the Smollett case, made false statements that may have violated state legal ethics rules.
The state’s law firm rejected Webb’s claim, adding that it never knowingly made inaccurate statements. But in an email, the agency noted that it had already made a number of changes, including hiring an ethics officer.
Webb was appointed by a Cook County judge last year as a special prosecutor to try the case. In the course of his review, Webb filed renewed hoax-related charges against Smollett, to whom the actor pleaded not guilty on Feb. 24.
Smollett lost his role as singer-songwriter in ‘Empire’, a hip-hop drama on Fox television, following allegations that he had submitted a false report.
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