Smollett charged with a felony for filing a false police report. Faces three years in prison

abc7 in Chicago reports,

"Empire" actor Jussie Smollett has been charged with one count of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said Wednesday evening.

Smollett is due in court in Chicago at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

Employees at Beauty House in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood said the brothers came to the business the day before the alleged attack, and a security guard said he remembers the siblings because they purchased ski masks.

Chicago police confirmed the authenticity of the surveillance video, which shows the brothers purchasing numerous items, including a red ball cap, gloves, and ski masks.

Security guard Montago Silas said he was asked by the siblings if the store sold ski masks, but the business did not have the traditional balaclava-type mask; they only carried the kind with separate eyeholes. He thought it strange that they purchased them.

After the police department investigated Smollett's attack for weeks as a possible hate crime, they discovered that one of the brothers bought the rope to be used in the attack at a local hardware store. The Chicago Sun-Times reports the store was the Crafty Beaver hardware store in Ravenswood.

ABC7 Eyewitness News learned Tuesday that Smollett pleaded no contest to DUI, driving without a license and providing false information to law enforcement in Los Angeles in 2007. He was sentenced to two years of probation and either spent three days in jail or paid a fine of $100 for the three misdemeanor charges, according to the LA city attorney's office, though it's unclear which option he chose.

If convicted of filing a false police report, which is a felony in Illinois, Smollett could face up to three years in prison.

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