The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
The long-delayed African-American actor Jussie Smollett's false police report was finally revealed on the afternoon of March 10, local time, following a jury verdict on five counts of obstruction of law and order on December 9 last year.
Chicago Judge James Lynn solemnly ruled that the defendant, Smalllet, was sentenced to five months in prison and immediately executed. In addition, he was required to pay a fine of $25,000, plus $120,000 to the City of Chicago to compensate for the human, material, and financial resources of authorities to investigate his false cases.
Jassie Smallett
Self-directed and self-acting farce, the outside world was expected to go to jail for three years
After hearing the verdict, the emotional Smollett immediately stood up and took off his mask and said loudly: "I am innocent, I will not kill myself." Although he was quickly forcibly suppressed by the bailiffs and taken out of the courtroom, on the way out, he continued to shout: "I will not kill myself, if something happens in prison, it must be someone who has laid the black hand." ”
The reason why Smallt will shout "will not commit suicide" is that in recent years, there have been many incidents of celebrity prisoners committing suicide in prison in AMERICAN prisons, especially the suicide of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and the famous model agent Jean-Luc Brunel, which is also full of conspiracy theories. But most people familiar with the case of Jassy Smallt do not forcibly associate it with political intrigue. After all, in the winter of 2019, when the then-reigning US President Trump also complained about the African-American actor who claimed to have been violently attacked by racists. It was only after the Chicago police announced that the attack was purely Self-directed by Smallett that the Republicans led by Trump began to turn their guns to criticize Smallett's clown behavior.
In the face of the truth, American Democrats and liberal media have also criticized Jassie Smallett. Therefore, if there is really any three long and two short during his imprisonment this time, it is difficult to say what motives and obvious beneficiaries are behind it.
Smallette (center) plays his second brother Jamal in Hip Hop Empire
Of course, after all, the actors involved in the once-popular series "Hip Hop Empire", the Cook County Local Prison in Chicago, which was responsible for the detention of Smollett, finally decided to arrange special single room treatment for him. Moreover, according to the prison authorities, the single room is equipped with 24-hour monitoring equipment, there is only one passage outside, and there is a 24-hour prison guard supervision at the entrance, and even The wind time of Smallett will be completely staggered from other prisoners, strictly preventing any accidents.
Back in the early hours of January 29, 2019, Jassy Smallt claimed to have been beaten by two masked gangsters and shouted racist slogans. Two weeks later, the local Police in Chicago announced that the two perpetrators involved were African-American group actors of the "Hip Hop Empire" crew, hired by Smallett himself to carry out the attack, and the purpose of his self-directing and self-acting was to win the sympathy and higher popularity of the world as a victim of hate crimes.
Late last year, a jury found Smallett guilty. Under U.S. criminal law, each count of obstruction of law and order involving a false report is punishable by up to three years in prison, while Smollett violates five counts in one go, so theoretically, a maximum of fifteen years in prison. However, for people like him who have a clean and criminal record in the past, the US judicial system generally does not impose heavy hands, so it was widely expected that he would eat at most three years in prison this time. Because of this, when Judge Lynn finally announced that the sentence was only five months, many observers were still slightly surprised.
In his sentencing, Judge Lynn did not shy away from denouncing the defendant, Smalllet, as an "extremely arrogant, narcissistic, and selfish liar who wanted to get more attention, only to self-destruct his future because of his self-righteous cleverness and tricks." But when it comes to the "future," the future of Smollett, which has a lot of resources, may not be as bad as the judges say.
Born in 1982, Smallett was born to an African-American mother and a white Jewish father whose ancestors had immigrated to the United States from Poland. The Smalllett family has six children, including him, almost all of whom are child stars, and have also starred in ABC dramas such as "On Our Own". Since 2015, he has played the role of his second brother Jamal in the popular American drama "Hip Hop Empire", and was nominated for the American Teen Choice Award for Best Actor in a TV Series for four consecutive years, and later played the navigator on the spaceship "Covenant" in the sci-fi blockbuster "Alien: Covenant" directed by Ridley Scott.
Numerous celebrities wrote letters to the judges to intercede
For more than two years, Jassie Smallett, who has lost most people's trust due to scandal, has long since been removed from the hip-hop empire crew, but he also used his free time to write and direct his own independent film "B-Boy Blues", which tells the story of black same-sex love, and had earlier completed its world premiere at the 25th African American Film Festival. However, because of the lawsuit, the film has never been able to find a company willing to release, but according to Tom Wilson, an independent investor involved in the production of the film, he revealed to the media that Smallett is confident that he will make a comeback in the near future and return to the American film industry. According to Wilson, Smallett is a scapegoat for the maladious American judicial system: "If there is fairness and justice, he should not squat in jail for a day." ”
After the incident, Smallett wrote and directed the film "Boy Bruce"
Believing his innocence is definitely not just Tom Wilson. In court, Smallett's 92-year-old grandmother, his sister Jurnee Smollett, who is also working in the show business circle, and some members of the crew of "Hip Hop Empire" continued to cheer for him, hoping that the judge would return his innocence. And, just a week before the final verdict was pronounced, Smallett commissioned his team of lawyers to make a final effort. They filed a motion requiring the tribunal to either declare the guilty verdict null and void or to arrange a new trial on the grounds that the defendant's rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution had been repeatedly violated throughout the trial. "Jassie Smallett has become a scapegoat for the political divisions that are wreaking havoc on the continent." Its team of lawyers protested.
By the same token, the Rev. Jesse L Jackson, Sr, the leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement, Melina Abdullah, the leader of the Black People's Destiny movement, and Samuel Jackson, a prominent African-American actor, all recently wrote to Judge Lynn in the hope that he would "turn a blind eye" to his little black brother.
Whether the five-month sentence is long or short, the American people also have their own views. But on the night of the sentencing, Ms. Kim Foxx, the Chief Inspector general of the Chicago District, wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times criticizing the decision of her district judge. She stressed that Smollett was the victim of the case, and that his five-month prison sentence was a failure of the U.S. judicial system.
In fact, Ms. Kim was originally responsible for the case. As the head of Chicago's prosecution system, she should have brought Smalllet to court. Instead, she announced that the case was dropped on the grounds that Smallett had received the punishment it deserved — including a $10,000 bail for discredited and forfeited. Later, due to the public uproar, the Chicago District Court announced the resumption of the case, and finally the current verdict was announced.
But Prosecutor Kim Fox, who never hid that he and the Jassy Smollett family were acquaintances, still don't feel anywhere wrong with what he did. "Given the cost of his career that he had already paid at the time, given the $10,000 bail we had forfeited, and given that he had never had a record of violent crimes in the past, we made the decision to drop the charges." In fact, the case really should have ended that way, but the result was just the opposite, and american taxpayers paid a lot of money to try such a fraud case. On the other hand, last year alone, there were more than 800 homicides in Chicago, but everyone's energy was spent on things like this one, rather than fighting violence at the source. It seems to me that our judicial system has been kidnapped by a small group of people and imposed on Jassy Smollett, at its best, justice that belongs to a ragtag bunch. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang