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Hoaxes For Dummies
Jussie Smollett is back in the news. He’s filed a countersuit against the City of Chicago for malicious prosecution. In case you’ve forgotten who Jussie Smollett is he claimed that two white MAGA men attacked him in the early morning hours as he was walking home with a Subway sandwich. As everyone knows, Chicago streets are dangerous because Trump supporters are out wilding when the temps drop into the teens in their relentless search for a gay black actor they can assault.
Smollett’s lawyers filed their two-count counterclaim late Tuesday. They delivered it in a 49-page response to a lawsuit first filed by the city, which seeks to recover $130,106 for the investigation it conducted after Smollett made his allegedly false claim in January. The actor leveled his new accusations against the city, the Chicago Police Department, detectives Michael Theis and Edward Wodnicki, CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson, and bodybuilding brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo.
“Four years ago, I ran for State’s Attorney to change criminal justice in Cook County. I’m running again because we’re only getting started,” Foxx said in an ad launching her re-election bid.
Smollett is trying to put it back on the Osundairo Brothers to continue to claim it was not a hoax, but unless they were wearing “white face” (based on Smollett’s own claims that the attackers were white men in balaclavas) this cannot be so. There is no doubt that the Osundairo Brothers were there. The only question is whether they attacked him or it was staged. And when an “actor” is a victim, with profit in it him to be a victim, the stakes for “staged” are raised.
This man is like an incredibly irritating mosquito, buzzing endlessly around our heads and we can’t get him to go away. Go away, Jussie. Please
Like Hillary Clinton he’s working towards the Most Irritating Person of the Year. Good luck to him it’s a crowded field.
Unless an actor is at poverty where he can get welfare, they should put at least 1/2 of their net income after taxes in a special “lock box” fund.
If I was Jussie, I’d take the deal for $144 K to avoid prosecution. He can make it back being a “celebrity.”
Of course, I wouldn’t even dream of doing this.
Will the whole truth come out in court? I figured he would just settle without admitting guilt and pay a fine. Counter suing could just be for negotiating purposes, but I would really like to hear the testimony of the “attackers.”
I suspect that this will be settled out a court with Jussie Smollett getting a sizable settlement but without either party admitting any sort of guilt thus a win all around.
The police acted stupidly not backing a minority celebrity with political ties to the Democrats.
This was a big mistake made by the First Assistant’s State’s Attorney. A guilty plea as part of the deal should have been mandated. The officer’s named in the suit have a certain amount of protection from civil liability if they had good probable cause, and a reasonable belief that Mr. Smollett committed the crimes he was charged with.
The lack of a guilty plea will complicate the civil suit, as would a No Contest plea would have done. Look for Mr. Smollett’s attorney’s to suppress the evidence that police collected, a task that would have been more difficult if he had plead guilty to the charges.
Jussie is under the misapprehension that they will play this game by the rules.
I guess this is his career now.
But that is the issue. Jussie is a big Democrat donor with many ties to the party as well as being black and gay. He will get money back and some sort of win out of this. That is a given.
If I was this cynical, I would be a terrorist.
To a lawyer, there is nothing surprising about this. It would be surprising if the smallest claims were brought separately as an independent lawsuit. That is not what happened. There being brought as a counterclaim. Whenever a client brings a complaint to a lawyer, one of the first things to be explored is whether there are any counterclaims to be filed. If the counterclaim arises out of the same facts and circumstances, at least under Ohio procedure, it is termed a compulsory counterclaim and must be filed or will be forever lost.
From the lawyer’s point of view, there was no real downside to filing this counterclaim. From Smollett point of view, it may unwise if Smollett want any future career in the public eye, because of the negative publicity. I do not have the impression that Jussie Smollett is the brightest bulb.