"Empire" Star Jussie Smollett Convicted For FAKING FELONY HATE CRIME: Conviction Overturned
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline
4.2 • 8.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett is convicted of staging a hate crime attack against himself on a cold Chicago night. Smollett was convicted on five disorderly conduct count and sentenced to 150 days. In reality, he spent only six days behind bars while maintaining his innocence. Now the Illinois Supreme Court has overturned Smollett's conviction. The court did not consider where the actor committed the crime, only that his constitutional rights were violated when he was prosecuted again after the original charges were dropped.
The state's highest court sided has ordered the case against Smollett be dismissed.
Joining Nancy Grace today: Forensics expert Karen Smith, Los Angeles psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall and Atlanta criminal lawyer Darryl Cohen.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. |
| 0:07.0 | Jesse Smollett, the race-attack hoaxer. |
| 0:13.0 | Well, we thought his case was over, right? |
| 0:16.0 | The former Empire Star was convicted for orchestrating a race attack hoax, stirring up much, much anger and |
| 0:29.1 | dissension and hurt feelings. Well, guess what? In the last hours, I hope you're sitting down. |
| 0:35.7 | You may need to lay down for this one. The Illinois Supreme Court, in its wisdom, has reversed Jesse Smollett's conviction. |
| 0:47.5 | That's right. His 2021 conviction has been overturned. Why? The Illinois Supreme Court says his second |
| 0:59.3 | prosecution after charges were initially dropped was the reason for the reversal. |
| 1:09.6 | The court said, today we resolve a question about the state's responsibility to honor agreements it makes with defendants. |
| 1:22.4 | Specifically, we address whether a dismissal of a case by an all-pross, |
| 1:28.8 | that's Latin for refusing to prosecute, |
| 1:32.0 | allows the state to bring a second prosecution |
| 1:35.2 | when the first dismissal was part of an agreement with the defendant, |
| 1:41.2 | and the defendant performs his part of the plea bargain. |
| 1:47.0 | In other words, the state, oh, this was such a bad decision by the state. |
| 1:53.9 | The state offered Smollett a deal, and their part of the deal was they would null |
| 1:59.4 | cross or drop his case. Well, after that deal was they would nullpros or drop his case. |
| 2:02.5 | Well, after that deal was struck, Smollett got new charges and was convicted of falsely reporting a hate crime against him. |
| 2:15.8 | Smolett claimed he was hated because he is black and gay. |
| 2:20.3 | Okay. |
| 2:21.2 | It turns out he arranged the whole attack to try to get PR and a pay race. |
| 2:27.3 | He was already bringing down tens of thousands of dollars per episode on Empire. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.