Jussie Smollett charged with 16 felony counts for allegedly filing false police report

Jussie Smollett has been charged with 16 felony counts by the Cook County grand jury, on the grounds that he allegedly filed a false police report.

He was previously charged with one count of disorderly conduct on 20 February, after Chicago police began doubting the legitimacy of his claim that he had been the victim of a hate crime.

Back in January, he said that two masked men assaulted him outside a Subway sandwich shop downtown, yelling out “racial and homophobic slurs,” tying rope around his neck and pouring an unknown substance onto his body.

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He also stated that the men referenced President Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign slogan during the event.

Smollett was treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, reportedly suffering from cuts to his face and a fractured rib.

However, police now say that Smollett staged the incident along with ‘hired attackers’ – brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo – because he was unsatisfied with how much he was being paid on the television series Empire. Since the allegations have surfaced, the 36-year-old has suspended from the show’s current season.

In response to the accusations, Smollett was interviewed by ABC’s Robin Roberts for Good Morning America, where he told her he was “p***ed off” at the lack of belief in his case.

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“It’s the attackers but it’s also the attacks,” he explained on a segment that aired on 13 February. “At first it was a thing of like, ‘Listen if I tell the truth then that’s it, ’cause it’s the truth.

“Then it became a thing of like, ‘Oh, how can you doubt that? How can you not believe that? It’s the truth.’ And then it became a thing of like, ‘Oh. It’s not necessarily that you don’t believe that this is the truth, you don’t even want to see the truth.'”