Jussie Smollett sentenced to jail, has courtroom outburst as he’s led away
Related: The Jussie Smollett saga just took yet another strange turnJurors at his trial heard how Smollett had colluded with two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, to stage the attack.
The brothers said he paid them $3,500. Smollett claimed the attackers yelled homophobic and racist slurs at him, doused him in a chemical bleach-like solution, and put a noose around his neck.He has consistently denied faking the incident and maintains he’s the victim of a crime.Judge James Linn allowed cameras into the courtroom to record him sentencing Smollett.
Prosecutors had pushed for jail time while Smollett’s defense argued the trial had been unfair.The judge heard statements from people asking him to show leniency to Smollett, including from Jesse Jackson and actor Samuel L Jackson.“I ask you, judge, not to send him to prison,” his grandmother, 92-year-old Molly Smollett, told the court. “If you do, send me along with him, OK?”Related: Jussie Smollett is about to go through some things after yesterday’s guilty verdictIn his 30-minute summing up, Judge Linn blasted Smollett as “profoundly arrogant and selfish and narcissistic.”He continued, “I don’t think money motivated you at all,” pointing out Smollett earned around $2million a year from his role on the TV show Empire.
He said Smollett had damaged the civil rights movement through his actions.“The only thing I can find is that you craved the attention,” Linn said.“You took some scabs off healing wounds, you ripped them apart.
