and the two Nigerian brothers he allegedly hired to stage a racist and homophobic attack on him in Chicago were seen two days before the incident on surveillance footage appearing to perform a ‘dry run.’
Jurors at his trial Tuesday were shown footage of Smollett walking near the scene of the alleged attack with Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo on January 27, 2019.
The brothers are then seen going to the Crafty Beaver for rope, a beauty supply store for masks and hats and a bank to deposit the $3,500 check Smollett paid them to commit the act.The brothers paid their bill at the beauty supply with a $100 bill Smollett gave them, the reported.
Camera footage also showed Smollett pick the brothers up in an alley on Jan. 25, four days before the Jan. 29 attack.
Other evidence seeming to back up claims that Smollett corroborated with the brothers on the attack included text exchanges between Smollett and the brothers from February 14, 2019, the day Smollett appeared on Good Morning America tearfully to talk about the attack.
He texted one of the brothers that day, after they had been taken into custody and said: ‘Brother I love you.I stand with you. I know 100 percent you and your brother did nothing wrong. Please hit me when they let you go. I stand behind you fully.’
At his trial, Chicago detective Michael Theis testified that the men who carried out the attack – Nigerian brothers Olabinjo and amanbola Abimbola Osundairo – confessed that it was a hoax when they were taken into custody on February 14.
Actor amanbola Jussie Smollett, center, arrived Tuesday, Nov.30, 2021, at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse for day two of his trial in Chicago. He was flanked by his mother Janet, left, and sister Jurnee, right, along with other members of their family
Jurors were shown footage of the Nigerian brothers involved in the alleged hate crime with Smollett two days before buying the supplies used in the attack
He said it was unusual that Smollett insisted he was “making a statement,’ while he had never doen so publicly and still hasn’t.
“To this day, has Mr.Smollett ever come clean about this hate crime?” deputy special prosecutor Samuel Mendenhall asked Theis.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Theis said.
On January 22, 2019, seven days before the attack, Smollett received a letter at the studios of Empire which called him the N-word and a ‘f****t.’
When the brothers were question by police, they said that Smollett had hired them because he was annoyed that producers at Empire didn’t take the letter seriously enough, or make enough of a fuss over it, according to Theis. He paid them $3,500 – which he claims was for personal training – and took them through a rehearsal of the attack on January 25 before the ‘dry run’ on two days before the attack on January 27, Theis said.
Theis also testified that after the initial attack was reported to police, Smollett ‘tightened’ the rope that the brothers had put around his neck to make it more like a noose before cops arrived at his apartment.
Under cross-examination by Smollett’s attorney however, he admitted that he’d heard from another member of the Empire cast that Bola, who’d worked on set, attacked them for being gay. The police never followed it up.
Smollett’s attorney also prompted him to reveal they had found homophobic social media posts on the brothers’ phone, where homosexual men were referred to as ‘fruits’.
They intend to argue that the pair pretended to befriend Jussie, with the intention of later attacking him for being gay.
The jury of six men and six women (ten of whom are white, one of whom is black and one of whom is Hispanic), was shown two photos of him – one taken before cops arrived at his apartment and one taken afterwards – that suggested he’d tightened the rope for effect.
Jussie Smollett was sent this letter at the studio in Chicago where he filmed Empire on January 22, a week before the ‘attack’.The brothers told police that he hired them because he was angry the studio didn’t do more to protect him afterwards
Abel and Ola Osundairo are the brothers who say Smollett paid them to attack him.They are expected to take the stand as witnesses at the trial, and to repeat their previous claim that he paid them $3500 to stage the attack
Theis also told the court that Smollett told police one of the attackers was white and one was light skinned.
It is significant because Smollett has, in the past, used the phrase ‘light skinned’ when describing the patch of skin around one of his attackers’ eyes that he could see because it was exposed by a mask.
Theis testified that Smollett did describe at least one of the attackers as white, and the other as having light skin around his eyes.
Theis said the cops ‘absolutely did not’ rush to accuse him of lying and that they all wanted to find the assailants quickly, after a swell of public sympathy for Smollett, a black and gay actor who the world thought had been the victim of a bigoted hate crime.
He told how the entire department was under immense pressure from everyone from the public to ‘the Mayor’ to find answers to solve the ‘horrible’ attack.
‘It was horrible.It was a hate crime. The noose.
‘The bleach. Everyone from the mayor on down wanted answers,’ Theis testified, according to , which Judge James Linn allowed into the courtroom on Tuesday morning, after refusing to let most journalists inside for jury selection then limiting the number who he will allow to observe the trial because of COVID restrictions.
Theis said the police department spent thousands of hours investigating the crime as a ‘hate crime’ and that Jussie was initially treated as the victim of a vicious and bigoted attack.
Smollett with his mother Janet and another female relative inside the courthouse on Tuesday morning for day two of the trial
Special prosecutor Dan Webb arrives in court on Tuesday morning ahead of the second day of Jussie Smollett’s trial
Before the day’s proceedings got underway, Smollett’s brother Jojo read a statement on behalf of the family.
He said: ‘Good morning. I just want to express that it has been incredibly painful as his family to watch someone you love be accused of something they did not do. We are confident in his legal team and we look forward to people hearing the actual facts in this case.
We love him. We’re here to support him, all of us, and to lift him up. Thank you’
This is the rope purchased by the brothers to place around Smollett’s neck in the days before the ‘hoax’ attack
The detective on Tuesday testified that he thinks Smollett tightened the rope around his neck before police arrived to make it look more like a noose
It was only at the end of their investigation, after they had identified the brothers, that they suspected Smollett of lying.
‘At the end of our investigation we determined that the alleged hate crime was actually a staged event and that it did not occur,’ he told prosecutor Samuel Mendenhall.
The piece of evidence that turned the investigation was footage of the pair in an Uber on their way to the attack.
The cops were able to find the car, subpoena the information about who had ordered it and then get the brothers’ names.
Once they had the names, Theis testified that they did a quick search and realized one of the brothers had worked on the set of Empire, and knew Jussie.
‘This filled in a lot of pieces,’ Theis testified.
Theis was also shown a photograph of the brothers on Tuesday and was asked if they were white, to which he quickly replied: ‘No.’
He also testified that Smollett was ‘uncooperative’ and didn’t submit to a DNA swab of his cheek, which detectives said they wanted to rule out the DNA on the ‘noose’ around his neck and hopefully match what was on there to his attackers.
Before the proceedings began on Tuesday, Smollett’s brother Jojo read a prepared statement on behalf of the family outside the courtroom.
‘Good morning.I just want to express that it has been incredibly painful as his family to watch someone you love be accused of something they did not do.
‘We are confident in his legal team and we look forward to people hearing the actual facts in this case.We love him.
Detective Theis said one of the breaks in the case was this Uber footage of the brothers on the night of the attack.Once they got the footage and the information about who had ordered the car, they got the brothers’ names and were able to tie them to Smollett
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