WANTED...

Credit to MOTUS AD

Now he wants privacy

In PJ Media, Debra Heine reports,

Newly released investigative files from the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax show that the Empire star used Venmo to pay his accomplices for pot, ecstasy, and cocaine. The documents, which were made public on Thursday, a week after a Cook County Circuit Court judge ordered their release, reveal in detail how the Osundairo brothers described the staged attack.

Read more here.

"There are no legal consequences for filing a hoax report of a hate crime!"

So writes Ace of Spades on the news of all charges being dropped against Jussie Smollett. Read more here.

Not a very good actor, but a pretty good liar

CWB in Chicago reports today that

Embattled TV star Jussie Smollett's legal problems have just become significantly more serious as a Cook County grand jury has returned a 16-count true bill of charges against him in connection with his alleged falsification of a hate crime in Streeterville in late January.

Smollet was charged with a single count of felony disorderly conduct-false report last month based on allegations brought by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.

But, CWBChicago has learned that a grand jury has now returned a total of 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct-false report against the former star of Empire on Fox.

The grand jury's true bill states that Smollett lied about the attack to two separate police officers--the beat cop who took his initial report and a detective who conducted a follow-up interview the same day.

In one set of charges, the grand jury found that Smollet filed a false police report around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29th in which he told an officer that he was attacked near 341 East Lower North Water Street by two unknown men who were dressed in black and one of whom wore a ski mask. The jury further found that Smollett told the original officer that the attackers called him racial and homophobic slurs and struck him in the face with their hands. The police report connected to these charges also indicate that Smollett claimed that a noose had been placed around his neck and a "chemical" had been poured on him.

The second set of charges returned by the grand jury involves Smollett's alleged false reporting of the incident to a police detective later the same day. Additional details that Smollett apparently included in the second interview include: the men approached him from behind, Smollett fought back, and all three men fell to the ground where Smollett said he was kicked in the back and felt someone pulling on his neck. During this interview, Smollett also told the officer that one offender was a white male wearing a black mask with an open area around the eyes that exposed the attacker's skin, the grand jury found.

While announcing the initial charge against Smollett last month, Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said his department believed that Smollett was also responsible for mailing a threat letter to himself that set the stage for the purported hate crime. Nonetheless, no charges were brought against Smollett in connection with the letter by the grand jury.

The new charges against Smollett each carry a potential sentence of probation to three years if convicted. Realistically, though, Smollett is unlikely to be convicted on more than a fraction of the charges. Most Cook County criminal cases are resolved through plea bargains in which a defendant pleads guilty to one and, rarely, two counts of an indictment in return for a favorable sentence. Only by going to trial do most defendants run the real risk of being convicted of more than one or two counts. Even in the worst case scenario of conviction on multiple counts, any jail sentences would almost certainly be ordered served concurrently.

Read more here.

Now do you believe her?

"An insidious, sick hoax"

In the Ace of Spades blog, JJ Sefton comments on the arrest and incarceration of Jussie Smollett.

Good morning kids. Thursday is here so let's get to it. First up, now that he's been finally asked to turn turned himself in to face criminal charges, it's official: Jussie Smollett perpetrated an insidious, sick hoax in order to boost his flagging career. The way in which he did it is worse than the hoax itself, IMHO: to attempt to throw dynamite on a bonfire of the Democrat-Left-Media complex's own making, which is the disgusting blood libel of America as an unjust, racist nation with its illegitimately-elected President hoping to restore and revive the injustice and racism that undergirded its illegitimate founding. Interesting to note that it seems as if the Chicago Police had to almost be dragged kicking and screaming to look into this because of the nature of Chicago ethnic-driven politics combined with the fear of the city turning into the next Ferguson, MO.

The whole thing was so patently fraudulent and ineptly executed, to the extent that the closed circuit security camera that Smollett thought would capture the incident was pointed in the wrong direction. And that there is a massive bullet that was dodged. Even with the confirmation of this as a hoax, that video would no doubt have joined the pantheon of racialist fraud memes alongside "Hands-Up-Don't-Shoot!," "I Can't Breathe!" and the innocent-as-the-day-he-was-born graduation photo of Trayvon Martin (not the one of him flashing Flava-Flav dentures and gang hand signs).

But where is everyone in the Media, the show business self-proclaimed elite and the Democrat politicians - most notably the likes of Cory Booker and Kamala-Toe Harris - who took to the microphones and cameras within seconds of this story initially breaking to denounce Trump, whitey, heterosexuals and America for this heinous act? It's so silent, the friggin' crickets are starting to stare at each other. But that was a rhetorical question. The aforementioned are fully vested in perpetrating and perpetuating the blood-libeling of America as founded because that is how they will ultimately bamboozle enough people - as well as import them by the millions from south of the border and elsewhere - into destroying it and seizing absolute power once and for all.

Read more here.

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.

Read more here.

Another huge failure by the media

In PJMedia, Debra Heine explains how the media failed once again to challenge dubious claims.

Empire actor Jussie Smollett's weeks-long reign as (liberal) America's intersectional sweetheart came to an inglorious end this weekend when it was revealed in multiple reports that he paid his two Nigerian pals to stage a fake hate crime against him last month in Chicago.

Many (perhaps most) Americans from the beginning suspected that Smollett tried to manufacture a hate crime to make Trump supporters look bad. But not the mainstream media. They fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

You would think that after falling for "tribal elder" Nathan Phillips' dubious claims last month -- to the point of being legally culpable -- the media would be a bit more circumspect.

But no. When presented with another enticing opportunity to demonize Trump supporters, they jumped like Pavlov's dogs at the chance.

TMZ broke the original version of the story late last month in a report alleging that Smollett was the victim of a vicious hate crime:

Upon leaving a Chicago Subway sandwich shop circa 2 AM one sub-zero night in late January, two masked men recognized him as the openly gay black actor starring in Fox’s ‘Empire,’ hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him, beat him to the point of breaking his ribs, doused him with bleach, tied a noose around his neck, before pronouncing “This is MAGA Country!” and fleeing.
Detectives now have a receipt for the rope found on Smollett's neck showing that his Nigerian friends bought it.

There were inconsistencies in Smollett's story from the beginning, not to mention a continuous flow of leaks from Chicago cops indicating that they were investigating a potential hoax.

Why didn't Smollett mention that the attackers yelled, "This is MAGA country!" during his first interview? How did he know the race of his attackers if they were completely covered and wearing face masks? Why was he still holding his Subway sandwich when he got back to the apartment? Why did he wait more than 40 minutes before calling the police? Why did he still have the noose around his neck when the police came? Why did he ask them to turn off their body cameras? Where did TMZ get the idea that he had broken ribs? (He didn't.) Is it really plausible that these racist, anti-gay Trumpies would be out hunting for Smollett at 2 a.m. on one of the coldest nights of the year?

Local reporters did an excellent job of looking for answers to those questions and bringing out the facts before they were officially confirmed by the Chicago Police Department.

But amid all of the questions and inconsistencies, most of the national media *still* uncritically reported Smollett's tale of being "brutally assaulted" by racist, homophobic Trump supporters -- right up to the bitter end.

As Grabien notes, "The national media owed it to their viewers to give this story the circumspect coverage responsible journalism demands."

But instead, we saw journalists in many cases report Smollett's highly dubious claims as facts -- not allegations. And as his story was rapidly falling apart, Smollett was granted a softball interview on Good Morning America, where he was treated with kid gloves.

..."This is America in 2019," CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin lamented in response to the Smollett's hate crime story.

She's actually right about that. But not in the way she thinks.

Read more here.