Jussie Smollett, now infamous for allegedly paying a couple of dudes to stage a hate crime, has been billed by the city of Chicago for the investigation into his faux allegations. That tab is just over $130,000. In April, the city sued Smollett for failure to reimburse the costs associated with investigating a “false police report.”
Tuesday night, Smollett’s lawyers argued that it’s not Smollett’s part the Chicago Police Department racked up a $130k bill investigating a crime his client claimed transpired.
The Chicago Sun Times has more:
The actor, once a star of the hit-TV series “Empire,” is making one last attempt to get a city lawsuit against him tossed out of federal court before it proceeds to trial.
Sneed learned exclusively that late Tuesday night, his attorneys filed a motion responding to the city’s claim that he should pay the city more than $130,000 to cover police overtime and other costs. The city says the costs were incurred in connection with an investigation into a report he filed claiming he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in River North. Police later charged Smollett with staging the attack.
Attorneys for Smollett deny the actor made up the attack, and note charges were ultimately dropped by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
“My client from the beginning has maintained his innocence and disputed the city’s allegations,” said William J. Quinlan, of The Quinlan Law Firm, who filed the motion. He noted that “it’s going to be very difficult for the city to prevail in making a case my client should pay for overtime for a case ultimately dismissed by the state’s attorney.
“It’s ridiculous and a stretch to require him to do so.”
But the latest court filing contends even if Smollett did make a false report, there is no way the city can assert he would have known the city would investigate — and investigate it to the extent cops did.
“We contend the city is wrong,” Quinlan said of the city’s assertion that Smollett should have known the police would log nearly 2,000 hours in overtime trying to resolve the case. “ … The mere fact somebody filed a police report doesn’t presume the investigation will be done and certainly not to the extent of what the city is claiming.”
He added: “Smollett has no control over that.”
In the legal brief, obtained by Sneed, Smollett makes clear that he “disputes any and all assertions that he made a false statement and was not a victim of a crime.”
But even if he did, “The filing of a police report, in and of itself, does not necessitate a sprawling investigation nor does it, as a practical matter, usually result in an investigation as extensive as the one the CPD chose to undertake in this case,” the motion says.
It goes on to say the city “has failed to allege that Mr. Smollett was similarly ‘well aware’ that his statements to police would result in 1,836 hours of police overtime, or any other reasons why he should have known this would have been the case.”
That’s right. Because even though he wrote a check to pay his alleged attackers to “attack” him, Smollett assumed identity politics would sway public opinion in his favor and he’d grace national headlines as a victim, not as the accused.
For our extensive coverage of Smollett’s self-inflicted legal woes, see here.
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