CHICAGO (WLS) — Four days after her 150-day sentence, Jussie Smollett remains under protection at the Cook County Jail. And his family remains strongly supportive of the former TV personality convicted of lying to police about a hate crime hoax.
In an emotional outburst after Judge James Lynn announced that Smollett would be sent to jail at the end of Thursday’s sentencing hearing, the actor rose from his seat and repeatedly said he was “not suicidal.”
“And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I didn’t do it to myself. And you all need to know that,” Smollett said before being escorted out of the courtroom.
WATCH | Emotional outburst of Jussie Smollett in court
“It’s a very unfortunate situation,” his brother Jocky Smollett said. “It was a real mental marathon for him and my family, but he is very strong, he is very focused.”
Smollett’s younger brother visited him Sunday at the jail, where Smollett is in solitary confinement and under observation in the medical wing.
“He’s in a normal prison cell in a psychiatric hospital, so he’s not being treated, none of this is happening,” Smollett said. “He’s sitting in a prison cell, an ordinary prison cell.”
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Jocky Smollett added: “We’re just focused on getting our brother out of jail. He shouldn’t have spent a single day in prison.”
Smollett’s attorney has filed an emergency motion to have Smollett released from prison, enclosing an affidavit from a doctor stating that COVID poses a risk to Smollett’s health.
His family also fears a possible attack in prison. They say they have received threats about Smollett on social media and over the phone.
His brother tells us that a relative listed as an emergency contact at the prison received a threatening phone call. The Smollett family shared one voice message that is so graphic, racial and homophobic that ABC7 does not broadcast audio.
“We are against serious, homophobic people, serious racists,” said Jocky Smollett. “This is clear from the threats we receive. I get all sorts of nooses sent to me, all kinds of pictures of my brother with a noose around his neck.”
The special counsel has time to respond to the emergency motion before an appellate judge rules on whether Smollett should be released from prison.
The motion includes a long list of issues to be raised at his full appeal, including that Special Prosecutor Dan Webb was misappointed after Smollett reached a controversial deal with State Attorney Kim Fox’s office to drop the case shortly after. after he was charged in 2019.
In December, Smollett was found guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct for making false statements to police when he revealed he was the victim of a hate-motivated attack outside his Streeterville apartment in 2019. The case gained international attention thanks to an openly gay, black actor. A few days after he was attacked, he gave an interview on Good Morning America in which he tearfully described being attacked by two white men who shouted racist and homophobic slurs as they beat him and imposed a noose on him. on the neck.
The ensuing massive Chicago police investigation ultimately determined that Smollett hired his personal trainer and the trainer’s brother, both black, to stage the attack as a publicity stunt.
Veteran lawyer Richard Kling said appeal bonds are relatively rare and are only granted when the issues raised for appeal seem serious enough to overturn a conviction.
“At the best of times, and this was before COVID, the appeal took from 18 months to two years, so by then he would have probably served the prison part of his sentence,” Kling said.
Regarding COVID in the prison, a Cook County Sheriff’s spokesman told us that there are currently 15 cases of COVID out of the 6,100 people in custody.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
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