Chicago says it's prepared to sue after 'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett misses deadline to repay $130

[AKing]

Source: Chicago Tribune

Empire” actor Jussie Smollett missed a deadline to repay Chicago $130,000 for an alleged hate crime hoax, so outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is planning to sue him over it, according to a statement issued Thursday.

The city notified Smollett’s attorneys by letter last week of its demand that he pay $130,106 — the cost of the police overtime hours expended in the investigation into his allegations. The letter warned that if Smollett did not pay by April 4, the city “may prosecute you for making a false statement to the city.”

City attorneys are preparing a lawsuit and plan to pursue “the full measure of damages” allowed by city law, according to a statement.

Read more: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-jussie-smollett-chicago-fine-civil-suit-20190404-story.html

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Glad they're going after him. Let's see how he fares in a civil trial

[dsc]

1. No matter what you think of Smollett this is a horrible precedent

what happens the next time a domestic violence victim loses her nerve, or a rape victim loses her case are the prosecutors and police going to sue for repayment of the wasted resources? Frankly the police and Emanuel have much of the blame here. The police and he have lied so often that no sane person would believe them unless their tongues came noterized. On top of that, their chief lied on camera about the evidence in this case (the $3500 check which both Smollett and the attackers said was for training and the chief said was for the attack). Again, this precedent will make everyone less likely to report crimes.

[AKing]

3. Smollett wasn't a "victim" of anything. He's a smarmy self-entitled celebrity who faked...

a hate crime in order to get a bigger paycheck. He wasted police and city resources and should be held fully accountable for his reprehensible behavior.

[jberryhill]

6. That makes no sense to me at all

Punishing someone from demonstrably faking and reporting a fake crime deters others from also reporting fake crimes.

It doesn’t have any effect on victims of real crime.

[Freethinker65]

2. How much money and manpower will this lawsuit take?

If they were going this route, Chicago should never have accepted his forfeiture and community service.

[AKing]

4. The state's attorney made the decision to make the deal. The City was totally against it

If Smollett loses the lawsuit he'll almost certainly be made to cover the costs of going after him for payment

[Freethinker65]

8. And if Smollett wins, the city will have to pay his costs

Not a fan of Smollett and his part in this probable publicity/sympathy stunt gone wrong...but the police mishandled the event, perhaps egged on by the media's attention to Smollett's TV celebrity status.

[catrose]

5. But they dropped the charges...they can still collect damages from him?

[jberryhill]

7. Yes

[Jose Garcia]

12. The County DA dropped the charges, not the city

[christx30]

10. The state cared more about the money than punishing him

for the hoax. So they made a deal where he would pay and do community service to make it go away. The state dropped the charges, but Smollett isn't living up to his side of the deal.
What the state should have done is put into the deal that failure of any kind on Smollett's part will result in charges being reinstated, and he goes to trail, and he takes his chances in front of a jury.

[Sapient Donkey]

14. Isn't that usually how that works?

I know some people who had deferred prosecution in which everything would go away if they stayed out of trouble for an amount of time and fulfilled other stipulations such as community service and/or classes, but if they failed to do their part then the charges became active again.

[RandiFan1290]

11. Welcome Back to DU! nt

[Sapient Donkey]

13. I wonder if the CPD and the mayor would have different reactions if Jussie didn't continue

to act as if he was victim and was wrongfully persecuted by the city. I personally would have been happy to see this all go away with him paying some fines and maybe some community service, but it rubbed me the wrong way when he went public afterward claiming he was subject to some injustice because his story didn't hold up.

[ripcord]

15. Smollett is still waiting for his apology

The lawyer who made that statement was totally tone deaf, to be honest I'm surprised the city didn't go after him for 3 times the amount as the law allows.

[liberalhistorian]

16. So when is the city

going after all the Chicago cops who cost it tens of millions of dollars in wrongful use of force and misconduct claims? Funny how you didn't see Rahm and the police chief get all red-faced with righteous anger at a specially-called press conference over that.