By DON BABWIN and SARA BURNETT Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) — After two brothers spent hours telling a jury how Jussie Smollett paid them to carry out a fake racist and anti-gay attack on him in downtown Chicago, the big question as the actor’s trial resumed Monday is whether he will tell his side of the story.
The prosecution rested Thursday and the defense began calling witnesses. On Monday, testimony began with the defense calling a security guard who was working in the area where the alleged attack occurred in January 2019.
Actor Jussie Smollett arrives Monday, Dec. 6, 2021, with his mother Janet at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse for day five of his trial in Chicago. Smollett is accused of lying to police when he reported he was the victim of a racist, anti-gay attack in downtown Chicago nearly three years ago, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Attorneys rarely announce whether their clients will take the stand before they actually call them to testify, and Smollett’s attorneys have not made their plans public.
The reasons why Smollett might want to testify begin with just how bizarre the case is. During the trial that started Nov. 29, what emerged was the story of a television star who cast two brothers as his attackers, gave them dialogue to recite, and paid for the rope he told them to fashion into a noose and loop around his neck.
As strange as that sounds, it is the only narrative that has come to the jury from the siblings, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo. And some legal experts say the only chance Smollett has of beating charges that he lied to the police is by telling jurors his version of what happened on Jan. 29, 2019.
Defense attorney Shay Allen has suggested the brothers, who are Black, were motivated to accuse Smollett of staging the hoax because they disliked the performer — who is gay and Black — and then saw an opportunity to make money. They have suggested that after the brothers were questioned by police about the alleged attack, they asked Smollett for $1 million each to not testify against him at trial.
The defense also has argued that Chicago police rushed to judgement when they brought charges against Smollett, and suggested a third person may have been involved in the attack.
On the witness stand Monday, security guard Anthony Moore said that around the time of the alleged assault, he saw a person on the ground at the end of the block and two men running, one of whom was white. Moore said he told police what he saw, but when he was later questioned by the special prosecutor he felt pressured to change his story. Moore testified that he signed a statement that said the person was “possibly” a Black man, but that he felt “pressure and threatened to put something out there that I didn’t see.”
Under cross-examination, Moore said he only saw the man for one to two seconds.
Smollett, 39, is charged with six counts of felony disorderly conduct for making what prosecutors say was a false police report about the alleged attack — one count for each time he gave a report — to three different officers. The class 4 felony carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but experts have said if Smollett is convicted he likely would be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.
