Hours after posting $10,000 bond and agreeing to surrender his passport at a court hearing, Jussie Smollett rushed straight to the Empire set to beg his cast mates to believe he did not stage a race hoax attack on himself.
Smollett’s bail was set at $100,000 – the amount he gets paid for one episode of Empire. He paid the 10 percent to win back his freedom and will return to court on March 14 to face a felony charge of filing a false police report.
Smollett, who was earlier supported by his family, is said to have told everyone on the set: ‘I’m sorry I’ve put you all through this and not answered any calls. I wanted to say I’m sorry and, you know me, I would never do this to any of you, you are my family. I swear to God, I did not do this.’
His legal team later issued a statement calling Smollett ‘a young man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence’.
They said: ‘Today we witnessed an organized law enforcement spectacle that has no place in the American legal system. The presumption of innocence, a bedrock in the search for justice, was trampled upon at the expense of Mr. Smollett and notably, on the eve of a Mayoral election.
‘Mr. Smollett is a young man of impeccable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence and feels betrayed by a system that apparently wants to skip due process and proceed directly to sentencing.’
20th Century Fox have not yet decided whether to suspend or fire Smollett, who plays Jamal Lyon, the son of music mogul Lucious Lyon on popular hit series ’empire’. It is now in it’s fifth season and returns to air on 13th March. In light of his arrest, thee studio is said to be ‘considering its options’.
Hours earlier they had furiously denied the claims that he was being written out of the show and instead said that they stood by the ‘consummate professional’.
Prosecutors had earlier shared more details of his relationship with the two Nigerian brothers he allegedly paid to stage an attack on him in the hope that it would boost his profile.
The actor was hurried out of the Cook County Jail shortly before 5pm on Thursday and said nothing as he fought his way through photographers to get into a waiting car. He was flanked by bodyguards and driven away immediately.
Three of the actor’s five famous siblings, Jazz, Jocqui and Jake, were pictured making their way into Cook County Criminal Court before his bond hearing wearing sunglasses. They were later joined by their brother Jojo but their other sister Jurnee and mother Janet were not seen.