Jussie Smollett and the city of Chicago have reached a settlement agreement, Fox News Digital can confirm.
Smollett, 42, and the city have not finalized the paperwork, but they have come to an agreement roughly five months after the actor’s hate crime hoax conviction was overturned. Details of the agreement are unknown. Fox News Digital has reached out to Smollett’s representatives for comment.
Smollett, who is Black and gay, originally reported to Chicago police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by two men wearing ski masks in January 2019. He was convicted in 2021 of staging the hate crime himself, but it was later overturned.
The two parties will meet again in court on May 29, according to the court notice filed Monday and obtained by Fox News Digital.
JUSSIE SMOLLETT CONVICTION OVERTURNED BY ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT
The Illinois Supreme Court overturned Smollett’s hate crime hoax conviction in November.
“Today we resolve a question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants,” the court wrote in documents obtained by Fox News Digital at the time. “Specifically, we address whether a dismissal of a case by nolle prosequi allows the State to bring a second prosecution when the dismissal was entered as part of an agreement with the defendant and the defendant has performed his part of the bargain.”
“We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction.”
WATCH ‘JUSSIE SMOLLETT: ANATOMY OF A HOAX’
Smollett filed an appeals petition on Feb. 5, 2024, requesting the Illinois high court intervene in his ongoing legal drama. The actor’s conviction for a staged hate crime was upheld in December 2023.
They repeated an argument from previous appeals, saying his 2021 trial violated his Fifth Amendment protections against double jeopardy, or being punished twice for the same crime. They said he had already performed community service and forfeited a $10,000 bond as part of a 2019 deal with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to drop the initial 16 counts of disorderly conduct.
Smollett’s legal team argued that the state breached a “nolle prose agreement,” or non-prosecution agreement, by indicting him again in the hate crime hoax. In the agreement, Smollett had been told he could perform community service, forfeit his bond and the case would be dismissed — similar to a deferred prosecution. Instead, a grand jury restored the charges in 2020, and he was later convicted.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
Charges against Smollett were originally dropped in 2019. After special prosecutor Kim Foxx requested a new inquiry, the “Empire” star was convicted on five felony counts and later sentenced to 150 days in county jail. The Illinois Supreme Court decided that the special prosecutor’s decision to retry Smollett on charges violated his rights.
“Today we resolve a question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants,” Mark Geragos, Smollett’s lawyer, told Fox News Digital at the time. “We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction.”
“This was not a prosecution based on facts, rather it was a vindictive persecution and such a proceeding has no place in our criminal justice system,” another of Smollett’s attorneys, Nenye Uche, previously told Fox in a statement. “Ultimately, we are pleased that the rule of law was the big winner today. We are thankful to the Illinois Supreme Court for restoring order to Illinois’ criminal law jurisprudence.”
