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Pop culture expert and crime buff Perez Hilton says the Illinois Supreme Court’s Jussie Smollett decision didn’t dispute the accusations against him when it let him go from prison. It just ruled on a technicality.
And that may not help revive the disgraced actor’s “tanked” career.
“Unfortunately for Jussie Smollett, this won’t do him much good,” Hilton said. “Even though it has spared him from any time behind bars – so it literally did him good in that sense – but he wasn’t going to spend that much time locked up anyways.”
Smollett, who is Black and gay, initially told Chicago police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by two men wearing ski masks in January 2019. Then two brothers, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, said they were the masked men and that they helped Smollett pull off a hoax.
JUSSIE SMOLLETT CONVICTION OVERTURNED BY ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT
Smollett was convicted on five of six charges of disorderly conduct. (Nuccio DiNuzzo)
Kim Foxx, a progressive Democrat district attorney who oversaw the initial case, dropped the hoax charges against Smollett as part of an agreement in which he forfeited his bail money and was told to do community service. But he was later indicted by a grand jury with a special prosecutor on the case, tried and convicted.
People are going to see the headline, gloss over the details and continue to keep their opinions of him, Hilton said.
Special prosecutor Dan K. Webb blasted the court’s decision as “unprecedented.”
Hilton, like Webb, noted that the court didn’t address the allegations or throw out the evidence that Smollett conducted a hoax and then led Chicago police to waste limited resources trying to solve a hate crime that didn’t happen.
Hear more from Perez Hilton on the Jussie Smollett decision:
JUSSIE SMOLLETT’S CAREER HAS ‘HIT BOTTOM’ DESPITE MAINTAINING INNOCENCE OVER HATE CRIME HOAX: EXPERT
“Today’s decision is only possible because of the unprecedented resolution of Mr. Smollett’s initial case by the Cook County State’s Attorneys’ Office (CCSAO) in March 2019, which the Illinois Supreme Court determined barred Mr. Smollett from any further prosecution,” Webb said in a statement.
“The Illinois Supreme Court reached this decision notwithstanding the fact that the CCSAO dismissed the initial Smollett case via a nolle prosequi, which does not bar re-prosecution under Illinois law, and Mr. Smollett’s own lawyers told the public immediately following the dismissal of his initial case in March 2019 that there was ‘no deal’ with the CCSAO.”
This booking photo provided by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office shows Jussie Smollett. (Cook County Sheriff’s Office via AP/File)
Some legal experts agreed with the court’s finding.
James Scozzari, a Michigan-based defense attorney who handles cases in multiple Midwest states, said it’s similar to what happened with disgraced actor Bill Cosby, when he was released from a Pennsylvania prison for similar reasoning.
Cosby had entered a non-prosecution agreement with a Philadelphia district attorney only to have another one bring charges against him over the same accusations.
Brothers Olabinjo Osundairo, right, and Abimbola Osundairo appear outside the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago on Feb. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
“Similar to the Cosby reversal, the DA initially agreed to non-prosecution dismissal in exchange for Smollett giving up his bond money,” Scozzari told Fox News Digital. “Refiling the case violated that agreement, hence double jeopardy.”
Smollett’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said it boiled down to whether the state has a responsibility to honor its agreements in court.
“We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation and we, therefore, reverse the defendant’s conviction,” he said.
Read the ruling:
BILL COSBY’S LAWYER ASKS SUPREME COURT NOT TO REVIVE HIS SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE
“Justin Smollett’s career has tanked, and I don’t see that changing as a result of this outcome,” he said.
Still, Hilton said, people shouldn’t be canceled “forever.”
He shared some advice for Smollett, if he has the work ethic to hit the ground running.
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“He doesn’t need a ton of money,” Hilton said. “He just needs the work ethic and the ideas, and if he has that, he can make things happen.”
But he’d be wise to let other people be the face of his projects, he added.
“He should be making these projects for others to star in and not as vehicles for himself,” he added. “So I think my suggestion would be, be a creative behind the scenes, and you can hopefully still be fulfilled and monetizing that way.”
Fox News’ Lauryn Overhultz and Matt Finn contributed to this report.
