Jussie Smollett Charged with Filing a False Police Report About Alleged Hate Attack
Jussie Smollett has been charged, PEOPLE confirms.
“The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has approved a disorderly conduct charge on Jussie Smollett,” a spokesperson for the state’s attorney’s office said.
Anthony Guglielmi, Chief Communications Officer for the Chicago police, also confirmed on Twitter Wednesday that the Empire actor faces felony charges of disorderly conduct and filing a false police report.
“Detectives will make contact with his legal team to negotiate a reasonable surrender for his arrest,” Guglielmi also tweeted.
If Smollett is found guilty, falsifying a police report is a Class 4 felony which carries a potential sentence of one to three years in prison.
“Like any other citizen, Mr. Smollett enjoys the presumption of innocence, particularly when there has been an investigation like this one where information, both true and false, has been repeatedly leaked,” Smollett’s attorneys, Todd Pugh and Victor Henderson, said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “Given these circumstances, we intend to conduct a thorough investigation and to mount an aggressive defense.”
Smollett is due in court in Chicago at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
RELATED: Fox Says Rumor Jussie Smollett Could Be Written Off Empire Is ‘Patently Ridiculous’
Just hours before the charges were approved by the state’s attorney’s office, Smollett was officially classified as a suspect in a criminal investigation by police for filing a false police report.
Fox had no comment.
Police named the star as a suspect after confirming to PEOPLE that he was questioned again Wednesday by prosecutors from the Cook County District Attorney’s Office.
The initial report about the alleged attack raised alarm: The openly gay black actor, singer and activist, told police he’d been physically attacked on the street in his downtown Chicago neighborhood around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29 by two black-clad, masked men who hurled racist and homophobic slurs, doused him with an “unknown chemical substance” and left him with a rope around his neck.
“This is MAGA country,” at least one assailant allegedly said, invoking President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan perceived by some as a discriminatory dismissal of minorities and immigrants. Smollett’s family branded the incident a racial and homophobic hate crime, and others on social media followed suit.
Smollett defended himself against the claims in a recent interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts.
RELATED: Empire Star Jussie Smollett’s Apparent Hate Crime: Everything We Know
An attorney for the men, Gloria Schmidt, previously told CBS Chicago that the men know Smollett from working on Empire and occasionally go to the same gym as the actor. She did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
“As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with,” according to a statement from his lawyers. “He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack. Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”
“One of these purported suspects was Jussie’s personal trainer who he hired to ready him physically for a music video,” the statement continued. “It is impossible to believe that this person could have played a role in the crime against Jussie or would falsely claim Jussie’s complicity.”
As questions about Smollett’s claims continued to reverberate Wednesday, 20th Century Fox Television and Fox Entertainment issued a statement in support of the actor.
“We are currently shooting season 5. We have two episodes remaining to shoot,” Fox said in a previous statement to PEOPLE on Wednesday about the current filming schedule.
