Legal drama witnessed the publication of an extraordinary rebuke of Chicago State’s Attorney Kim Foxx by the national association representing district attorneys, in which her conduct in the Smollett case was was picked apart piece by piece.
Prosecutors who dropped felony charges against actor Jussie Smollett over his report of a hate crime attack “have fundamentally misled the public on the law and circumstances surrounding the dismissal,” an Illinois lawyers group said.
The way Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office resolved the case also was “abnormal and unfamiliar to those who practice law,” wrote the Illinois Prosecutors Bar Association.
Earlier this week, Illinois state prosecutors announced, in a surprising turn of events, that they would be dropping all 16 felony charges against Smollett, who allegedly filed a false police report.
The “Empire” actor, who is black and gay, claimed at the end of January that he was the victim of a hate crime where two men attacked him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs.
In mid-February the Chicago Police Department said in a press conference that it had substantial evidence to suggest that Smollett had staged the attack and paid two men,one of whom he worked with on “Empire,” to carry out the hate crime.
Further, Foxx and her office “falsely informed the public” that sealing the criminal case was “mandatory,” the prosecutors’ organization said. And a special prosecutor should have been appointed when Foxx, citing familiarity with a potential witness, recused herself from the case, the group insisted.
Meantime, Chicago’s corporation counsel on Thursday asked Smollett to pay $130,106.15 to cover the cost of the investigation into his claims of an attack.