Yes, it’s breaking news: a jury in Chicago just found Jussie Smollett guilty on five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct for faking a report of a hate crime that he concocted against himself. (He was acquitted on one charge.)
In class 4 felonies like this, the judge can sentence Smollett to up to 3 years imprisonment and $25,000 in fines on each count, with sentences to run consecutively or concurrently. Maximum sentence would thus be 15 years in jail and a $125,000 fine, but that won’t happen. In fact, I’m not sure that Smollett will see the inside of prison at all.
Smollett isn’t out of the woods yet, as Chicago is suing him in civil court for $140,000 to recover the costs of the police investigation.
I was correct again, but you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see this coming.
Aside from the sentencing, this is the last time I’ll mention Juicy unless he pulls another stunt.
No surprise – he’s done genuine victims of the kind of attack he claimed to have suffered a grave injustice, though.
I really wish I was able to ask him “what the hell were you thinking??!!”
I’m glad. It will get nicely up the noses of a lot of entitled people who tried to make him a hero.
I read “noses” as “nooses” and did a double-take!
Oops, the link should have been: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-take_(comedy)
The next time we see him he’ll be wearing a MAGA hat and angling for a pardon.
CNN is saying that there is still the issue of perjury in Smollett’s testimony, and this could result in additional time added to his sentence.
I will be curious to see if/how the earlier “supporters” react to these verdicts.
My guess: “He was lynched by a racist judicial system!”
This is very possible if you look at the BLM’s defence statement, for example.
Here is how MSNBC is reporting the Jussie verdict….can anyone verify? And if this is all true, which I don’t doubt it is, you now see why so many go to Fox and other right-wing media…
Curtis Houck
@CurtisHouck
I know this won’t shock any of you, but MSNBC’s Joy Reid completely ignored the verdict in the #JussieSmollett case.
7:18 PM · Dec 9, 2021·Twitter Web App
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@CurtisHouck
And same with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on his show in the 8:00 p.m. Eastern hour.
Curtis Houck
@CurtisHouck
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Unsurprisingly, Rachel Maddow didn’t cover the #JussieSmollett verdict either.
https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1469114254217334791
In other words ‘Crickets’…
MSNBC did report it on Ari Melber’s show!
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1469088932604301315
In regard to the Smollett verdict, MSNBC is following the proverb that “silence is golden”. However, more excitable campaigners may be moved to demonstrating, the highest form of activism. My own group, the Hot Dog White Allies of BLM (HDWABLM) plans a protest demonstration in downtown Seattle. On the other hand, recent political developments suggest that we might actually risk arrest if the campaign for social justice impels us to break windows and set fires in Seattle. So, we may have to go down to Portland for this exercise.
Are any of those actually news anchors? I thought they were functionally Sean Hannity/Tucker Carlson types.
Someone has (rather unkindly!) collected some at-the-time Tweets by notables — link.
The worst I think is AOC’s who fumes about the cautious language of a press report that should be standard in yet-to-be-investigated cases that hinge on one person’s word. .