Megan Crepeau, Jeremy Gorner and Jason MeisnerContact ReportersChicago Tribune
A $3,500 check deposited at a grocery store bank. A red baseball cap purchased at an Uptown shop. A bottle of hot sauce left at the scene of “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett’s purported attack.
Those items are among the evidence detailed in Chicago police investigative records from the Smollett case released Wednesday to the Chicago Tribune under an open-records request.
The release of the documents came a day after Cook County prosecutors abruptly dropped a 16-count indictment accusing Smollett of orchestrating a Jan. 29 racist and homophobic attack on himself to advance his career. In dismissing the case, prosecutors said they had cut a deal with the actor to perform two days of community service and forfeit his $10,000 bond to the city of Chicago.
The unusual move allowed Smollett’s attorneys to get his criminal case immediately sealed, catching Chicago police brass by surprise and bringing swift condemnation from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called it a "whitewash of justice."
Like just about everything else in the Smollett case, even the fulfilling of a public records request became controversial. Police Department officials said Wednesday that shortly after releasing the materials to the Tribune,they were contacted by the state’s attorney’s office and ordered to stop distributing the documents.
“We received verbal notification from the state’s attorney’s office that the records are under court order,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Guglielmi said the department has asked for a copy of the court order that is barring the release of the documents.
“In the meantime, we have discontinued fulfilling those requests,” he said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with WBEZ-FM 91.5, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx noted that she did not make the decision to dismiss the case but said prosecutors have made similar arrangements for defendants with low-level felony charges.
“You know, I think that there is a lot of confusion,” Foxx said, according to a transcript on the station’s website. “For people who do this work every day, who recognize what the charges are—this is a Class 4 felony— for people who are in the weeds of this, we recognize that the likelihood that someone would get a prison sentence for a Class 4 felony is slim.”
Foxx also said she recognized that “there's a lot of emotion” surrounding the case right now but people might see it differently once the dust has settled.
“I wholeheartedly believe in our line of work we cannot be driven by emotion,” Foxx was quoted as saying. “We have to be driven by facts."
Asked whether her office should have pushed for Smollett to admit guilt in a more traditional plea deal, Foxx said that was “(Smollett’s) choice to make.”
“And should we have said nothing and allowed him to go to trial and also have the possibility that he's found not guilty?” Foxx said, according to the transcript. “Not every case that goes to trial has a finding of guilt. .. The presumption that if we had taken this case to trial that he would have been found guilty and therefore the justice would have been served — what happens to those who are found not guilty?”
Foxx recused herself from the case last month after revealing she had contact with Smollett's representatives early on in the investigation. She declined to provide details at the time. Communications later released to the Tribune, however, showed Foxx had asked Superintendent Eddie Johnson to turn over the investigation to the FBI after she was approached by a politically connected lawyer about the case.
The 61-page police file — which was redacted to remove witness names and other personal information — lays out in detail the investigative steps taken by a team of detectives to unravel what happened to Smollett on the frigid January night in Streeterville when he claimed he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.
While the detective files cover much of what was already publicly known about the investigation, they shed light on the moves that police and prosecutors made behind the scenes to interview witnesses in front of a grand jury amid the media frenzy over the case.
Shortly before Smollett was charged in February, detectives arranged to have two brothers who had allegedly been hired to attack the actor appear before the grand jury at the Leighton Criminal Court Building at 26th Street and California Avenue.
With reporters staking out the grand jury room on the building’s fourth floor, detectives arranged to meet the brothers and their lawyer at the parking lot of Guaranteed Rate Field on West 35th Street and then drive them to the courthouse a few miles away, the records show.
The detective brought them into the courthouse through a secured rear entrance near the Cook County Jail to avoid detection by reporters, according to the detective’s supplemental report.
Smollett, who is African-American and openly gay, has said he was walking from a Subway sandwich shop to his apartment in the 300 block of East North Water Street about 2 a.m. Jan. 29 when two men walked up, yelled racial and homophobic slurs, hit him and wrapped a noose around his neck. Smollett said they also poured a bleachlike substance on him and yelled, "This is MAGA country," in reference to President Donald Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Police initially treated the incident as a hate crime, but their focus turned to Smollett after the two brothers who were alleged to have been his attackers told police that Smollett had paid them $3,500 to stage the attack, with a promise of an additional $500 later.
Police pieced together much of their evidence by reviewing footage from about 55 police and private surveillance cameras showing the brothers' movements before and after the attack.
Among other evidence discussed in the files was a bottle of El Yucateco brand hot sauce that was found at the scene more than a week after the alleged attack. Detectives showed a photo of the bottle to one of the brothers, who “stated that it appeared to be the bottle he filled with bleach and poured on Smollett,” according to a supplemental report filed earlier this month.
On Feb. 19, another detective interviewed a manager of a TCF Bank branch located in a Jewel grocery store about a $3,500 check written by Smollett that had been deposited by one of the brothers, the records show. Prosecutors later alleged the check — which indicated in the memo line that it was for physical training — was, in fact, payment for carrying out the staged attack.
Police also obtained surveillance footage of the brothers purchasing many of the items they allegedly used in the attack at an Uptown beauty store, according to the reports. Among them were a rope, black masks, hats and gloves, the reports showed.
The most recent supplemental report — submitted Tuesday, the day the criminal case against Smollett was dropped — detailed the circumstances of Smollett’s surrender to police after he was charged Feb. 21.
According to the report, Smollett arrived at the Central District police station in the South Loop at 5 a.m. that day “accompanied by his attorney and other associates.” He was led to an interview room and read his rights before declining to speak to police.
Smollett’s attorney then asked detectives if they could release Smollett if he promised “he would show up at bond court” later that day. A sergeant informed the attorney “that would not be possible.”
On the drive to the courthouse, Smollett was offered “breakfast, coffee, or something to drink,” but he declined, according to the report. He was placed in a holding area and kept segregated — for security reasons — from the other detainees awaiting bond hearings.
“At no time while Smollett was in custody … was he handcuffed, placed in a cell or subjected to the media,” the report said.
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @crepeau
Twitter @JeremyGorner
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