Free Republic

Early in the morning hours of a polar vortex in January 2019, FOX's "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett claimed two White supremacist Trump supporters attacked him near his Chicago apartment in a racially-motivated hate crime that would soon incite outrage from activists and the media. It's the "hate crime" that dominated headlines, but facts proved none of it was true. In December 2021, the now-40-year-old actor and singer was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct. One year ago, he was sentenced in March 2022 to 150 days in county jail. Brothers Abimbola "Bola" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo, Smollett's accomplices...

CHICAGO, IL—In a powerful, emotional moment in the Jussie Smollett trial Thursday, a mirror was brought into the courtroom so Smollett could face his attackers for the first time since he was beaten up on the streets of Chicago. Smollett demanded to face his attackers to help him overcome the pain and trauma of the assault, and the judge obliged. He signaled for a bailiff, who brought in a tall mirror and held it up to Smollett. The actor wept as he looked his attackers right in the eye, facing them man to man. "Everyone deserves to face their attackers...

CHICAGO, IL—In a bombshell statement during his court case today, Jussie Smollett declared he can no longer be tried as he was murdered by racists while walking home last night and is now dead. "I am now dead, so I can't stand trial," said Smollett, in tears. "While I was walking home last night, a gang of white Republicans surrounded me and said 'Let's go Brandon!' and then they shot me. It was terrifying." The defense team backed up Smollett's statement. "Our client has clearly been murdered by racists, your honor, as he so eloquently stated today. We request that...

CHICAGO — Jussie Smollett’s attorneys asked for a mistrial Thursday after the judge called their evidence irrelevant in front of the jury and “physically lunged” at one of the actor’s lawyers. The odd fracas came in the midst of the defense’s cross-examination of Olabinjo Osundairo, who claims he was paid to help Smollett stage the hate crime, as attorney Tamara Walker grilled him about his alleged homophobia and past derogatory remarks toward suspected gay men. Osundairo, 30, had just acknowledged he used the word “fruity ass” to refer to a man he suspected was gay and Walker asked if Smollett,...

A man who worked with Jussie Smollett testified Wednesday that the former “Empire” actor recruited him and his brother to fake a homophobic and racist attack on him in downtown Chicago nearly three years ago. Abimbola Osundairo said Smollett asked him and his brother “to fake beat him up” and instructed them on how to carry out the January 2019 hoax. Smollett planned a “dry run” and gave him a $100 bill to buy supplies for the staged attack, Osundairo said. He said he and his brother agreed because Osundairo, who worked as a stand-in on “Empire,” felt indebted to...

The Jussie Smollett trial in Chicago is underway, and it's been quite a show thus far. Fox News correspondent Matt Finn, who's been on this case since it first broke almost three years ago, has been following every twist and turn. One of the key arguments from Smollett's defense team -- which amusingly continues to frame their client as 'a real victim' -- is that the police rushed to judgment and failed to do due diligence before wrongly concluding that the alleged crime was a hoax. That contention blew up in their faces, as Chicago officials testified in great detail...

Unredacted title: Smollet Crushed after Osundairos Blast Huge Lawsuit! This Changes Everything Video at link.

Special prosecutor Dan Webb continued his closing argument on Monday by laying out six key pieces of evidence that he believes “destroy” Jussie Smollett’s defense. In recapping what he already ran the jury through at trial, Webb summarized the case Wednesday in just six easy points for the jury to consider when they go into deliberations either later today or tomorrow: 1. Smollett allegedly withheld evidence from the police such as DNA evidence, medical records and his phone records. Webb believes this is because he didn’t want the crime to be solved. 2. Smollett actively attempted to mislead the police...

CNN anchor Don Lemon allegedly sent disgraced actor Jussie Smollett texts during the Chicago Police Department’s investigation of his alleged hoax hate crime. Testifying at his own trial on Monday, Jussie Smollett reportedly said under oath that he received a text message from Don Lemon informing him that Chicago police did not believe his account of what happened the night he claimed to have been the victim of a hate crime by two white Trump supporters. According to the Daily Mail, Smollett’s remark “was presented and then struck from the record.” “He said things began to seem off when he...

"Smollett testifying in his own defense is one of two things, or maybe both: a narcissistic criminal defendant who is doubling down on his charged lies to law enforcement or defense attorneys who know they are way behind and are throwing a low probability Hail Mary to try to get their client off," former U.S. attorney Neama Rahmani, who is not involved with Smollett's case, told Fox News Digital. Rahmani added: "Either way, Smollett’s story was a bizarre attempt at forcing a square peg into a round hole by offering every possible explanation for the state’s digital evidence except the...

CNN was finally forced to fire Chris Cuomo over the extensive assistance the prime-time host provided to brother Andrew regarding his various scandals. So you might think that "The Most Trusted Name in News" would be on high alert to avoid any similar journalistic malpractice by its anchors. But incredibly, as our Nicholas Fondacaro has reported, CNN permitted Don Lemon on his show last night to air a segment on the Smollett trial . . . without mentioning that Smollett had testified that Lemon himself had tipped him off that the Chicago police were not buying his story about being...

Jussie Smollett has admitted changing his description of his attackers from 'white' to 'pale' under cross-examination from the special prosecutor at his trial where he became increasingly defensive on Tuesday, his second day of testimony, snapping at the prosecutor for using the N-word while reading aloud his texts and insisting he has permanent injuries from the incident. Smollett took the stand again on Tuesday morning at his trial in Chicago where he is accused of lying to police about being the victim of a hate crime on January 29, 2019. During questioning by special prosecutor Dan Webb, the 39-year-old became...

Smollett’s hate-hoax fairy tale did expose how gullible Americans can be when you yell ‘racism.’Spare a thought for Jussie Smollett’s lawyers. Think of them being much like infantrymen who walk through fire on the way to glory, except they’ve been slogging through a mire of bulls*** on their way to absurdity. While wearing flip-flops. Their field commander is an insistently moronic fraud. The Iwo Jima flag they struggle to raise is the reputation of a dim actor who thought he would raise his profile by telling the world that he was attacked by the world’s least likely lynch mob —...

Under oath, Smollett maintained his innocence Monday and testified “there was no hoax” and the hate crime he suffered was real and carried out by brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo.

Jussie Smollett had a sexual relationship with one of the Nigerian brothers who allegedly orchestrated his 'hoax' attack, a new source claims. The anonymous insider told Page Six Wednesday that the Empire star, 37, and his purported 'attacker' Abel Osundairo also visited an upscale Chicago bathhouse together on multiple occasions. 'They used to party together and he [Smollet] had a sexual relationship with [Osundairo]. They went to this affluent Chicago bathhouse multiple times and they had to show ID. It's known as a bathhouse where a lot of affluent black gay men hang out,' the source stated.

The defense for former "Empire" actor, Jussie Smollett, rested their case on Tuesday after Smollett testified that the brothers involved in what prosecutors argued was a feigned hate crime were "liars." "They're liars," Smollett said of the brothers as he testified on Tuesday, according to NBC News. "They also said I had something to do with it, and I didn't." The prosecution has argued that Smollett staged a “fake hate crime” against himself by hiring two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, to stage a fake attack against him in 2019.

Two brothers who cops allege Jussie Smollett paid to carry out a staged hate crime against him, are now refusing to cooperate with the case because they're being treated like suspects. The Chicago Police Department claims Ola and Abel Osundario were paid $3,500 to jump the Empire actor last January before he claimed he was victim of a homophobic attack. The acting brothers agreed to help police in the case against Smollett but now they have changed their minds because the police are withholding their belongings as part of evidence.