this episode of news dump is brought to you by omaha steak standby purple it has been just about three years since jesse smollette claimed to have been the victim of a violent attack that appeared to be committed by racist homophobic trump-loving bigots who targeted the actor on the streets of chicago because according to his statements to police he was a gay black man who was critical of the then president wow while this country does have an extensive track record of similar incidents something about this one in particular seemed very suspicious right from the start it was almost too on the nose too blatantly planned and executed in a way that made it seem unbelievable and that's because it was planned and it was unbelievable because it was a faked attack wait hold on you're supposed to say allegedly right well not anymore we'll get to the judgment elliot so jesse smallett had reportedly paid two nigerian brothers NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN to stage the attack the brothers had previously worked with smolette as extras on the show empire they bought the red hats gloves and a ski mask from a local beauty supply store rope from a nearby hardware store and then rehearsed the attack a few days prior to ensure that it was orchestrated in a way that would catch the whole thing on security footage without revealing the identity of the two brothers smolette also instructed the brothers to make sure they shouted plenty of homophobic slurs and support for maggot while the attack played out smollett would later tell police that his attackers threatened him with this is mega country despite the attack taking place in chicago's streeterville neighborhood which is not maggot country it's uh yeah absolutely by any definition no everything started falling apart pretty quickly once the most basic basic investigative work was done they identified the assailants uh found that they'd received a check from smollett had footage of them buying the supplies and by the way when they bought the red hats they specifically asked at the beauty supply store like do you have any make america great again hats no we have red hats all right well this will have to do good enough and also as we later find out video footage of the attacks rehearsal with smolette himself damn which is uh kind of the nail in the coffin during this trial gotta make sure it shows up on video well it did yeah it did but that was the thing was apparently uh the video he like had them stand so they they you couldn't see that they were black because the the initial report was that there were two white maga racists um so about a month after the incident took place mullet was officially charged with filing a false police report a class four felony and he surrendered himself to police the following day a month after that smollette was indicted on NUMBER_TOKEN felony counts related to the incident with smolette and his legal team entering a not guilty plea as a result but just two weeks after that towards the end of march of NUMBER_TOKEN all of the charges against smollette were mysteriously dropped and we would later find out that a deal was struck behind the scenes where smollett agreed to perform just NUMBER_TOKEN hours of community service in order to have everything against him dropped and this is in addition to the fact that uh
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN this episode of news dump is brought to you by omaha steak standby purple END_SPONSOR_TOKEN