Empire actor Jussie Smollett, a judge in Cook County, Illinois announced at a hearing Tuesday.Smollett has been charged with disorderly conduct after prosecutors say he staged a hoax hate crime against himself in 2019, The New York Times reported.Smollett has pleaded not guilty.In January 2019, Smollett said he had been attacked by two men in a racist and homophobic assault while returning home from a restaurant.
He claimed to have been beaten and to have had a substance thrown on him. Smollett also said the assailants spewed racist and homophobic slurs at him while tying a rope around his neck.Almost a month later, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx charged the actor with filing a false police report.