Chicago police said actor Jussie Smollett paid brothers Abel and Ola Osundairo $ 3,500 to organize what Smollett claimed was a racist and homophobic attack on him in January 2019. Before concluding that Smollett had orchestrated the attack, the Police raided the brothers’ home when they returned. from a trip to Nigeria and identified them as people of interest.
But they were released without charge after they told police that they were paid to organize the attack. Smollett was charged with disorderly conduct, the Cook County State Attorney’s Office dropped the charges, and was later hit with a new round of charges last February.
Meanwhile, the brothers’ attorney said they were willing to testify against Smollett at trial.
But, reports Charlie De Mar of CBS Chicago, all that changed, because the brothers question the storage management of the items that were taken in the February 2019 raid.
“More than a year has passed and they need to give us back our things,” said Abel Osundairo, speaking exclusively with De Mar.
CBS News
Abel Osundario and his brother, Ola, will no longer voluntarily testify against Jussie Smollett, according to their lawyer, Gloria Schmidt Rodríguez, in part because the brothers say they are still brought in as suspects despite being cleared by the police.
“I would understand if we were charged in the case, which we are not,” said Abel Osundiaro.
It was Valentine’s Day 2019 when Chicago police kicked in the Osundairos’ front door to issue a search warrant when the brothers were still under investigation, and they took numerous items.
They included a safe containing a 9mm weapon and ammunition. Abel Osundairo is a legal owner of weapons.
“Legally, he belongs to me and I want to know his whereabouts,” he said.
The Osundairos’ things are in a Chicago Police evidence locker, and the brothers want to get them back.
Attorney Schmidt Rodríguez has filed a motion with a judge to return his belongings.
“Most of the things are not even mine,” said Abel Osundairo. “They belong to my older brother, my mother, my sister. They even took away my dog’s toy.”
On Wednesday, Abel Osundairo filed a police report.
The brothers and their lawyer say they are in an administrative dispute with the CPD over the items seized in that 2019 raid, specifically the whereabouts of the 9mm weapon and ammunition inside the safe.
“Of course I am skeptical, because you are saying one thing one day and another thing another day,” said Abel Osundairo. “It is just something else we have to go through.”
Chicago police say the weapon in question is explained and preserved as evidence. The CPD provided documentation to De Mar to corroborate the whereabouts of the weapon.
Police added they will cooperate with a judge’s order to release or present evidence, if applicable.
As for Smollett, the new indictment brought against him in February charged the actor with six counts of disorderly conduct, accusing him of filing false police reports that he was attacked on the way home from a subway train in the middle of the night in January of 2019.
Cook County prosecutors dropped the original case against Smollett, dismissing 16 counts of disorderly conduct last March without requiring him to admit to any crime. It was a controversial move a few weeks after he pleaded not guilty.
Subsequently, a special prosecutor was assigned to investigate the entire case after a judge discovered “unprecedented irregularities” in the way Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx handled it, specifically by turning him over to his second in command after announcing that she had recused herself.
Smollett pleaded not guilty to the new charge. A judge earlier this month denied Smollett’s request to drop the new charges.
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