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      Kodak Black Is Shot in Los Angeles

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      The rapper, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was shot in the leg while assisting another person after an “unprovoked attack,” his lawyer said.The rapper Kodak Black was among four people shot outside a party in Los Angeles early Saturday after what his lawyer said was an “unprovoked attack” on a person he was with at the time.The injuries were not life-threatening and no arrests have been made, the Los Angeles Police Department said on Sunday.Black, who was born Dieuson Octave and whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was sentenced in 2019 to nearly four years in prison on federal weapons charges. President Donald J. Trump commuted his sentence in January 2021, in his final hours in office.His lawyer, Brad Cohen, confirmed that Black was one of the shooting victims in a statement on Instagram on Sunday.There was “an unprovoked attack on an individual Kodak was with,” Cohen wrote. Black came to this person’s aid, Cohen said, and “several shots were fired at them by an unidentified assailant.”He added: “Kodak was struck in the leg. It was not life threatening, he will make a full recovery and he is in stable condition.”Cohen’s message on Instagram included a screen shot of an article from TMZ that said the shooting took place “right in front of a slew of celebs” who were attending a party after a Justin Bieber concert.TMZ said the party was at the Nice Guy, a bar and restaurant that describes its aesthetic as paying “homage to a decadent era of Mafia bars and restaurants.” The guests included Drake, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Kendall Jenner and Khloe Kardashian, TMZ reported.Cohen did not respond to questions about the shooting, and the police have released few details.The episode began around 2:45 a.m. local time when “a physical altercation between several individuals” erupted and gunshots were fired on the 400 block of North La Cienega Boulevard, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement.Two gunshot victims were taken to a hospital, the police said.At some point the police learned that there were two additional gunshot victims who had “self-transported to local hospitals,” according to the statement. “All four victims are listed in stable condition,” the police said.A police spokesman on Sunday said no information about the other victims was available.Black did not respond to a direct message on Instagram seeking comment on Sunday, but he did post a brief message about the Super Bowl to his more than four million followers on Twitter.Black, who is from Pompano Beach, Fla., topped the Billboard album charts in December 2018 with his album “Dying to Live” and has a new album scheduled for release on Feb. 25.In November 2019, he was sentenced to 46 months in prison after he admitted that he had lied on background check forms while buying firearms that year.Federal prosecutors in Miami said two of the guns were later found by the police at crime scenes, including one — with Black’s fingerprints and a live round in the chamber — that had been used to fire at a “rival rap artist.”Prosecutors had asked for him to be sentenced to 46 to 57 months in prison. In court, Black apologized and told the judge, “I do take full responsibility for my mishap,” The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno told the rapper: “Young people do stupid things. But the problem is that you’ve been doing stupid things since you were 15.” More

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      Jussie Smollett Sentencing Is Set for March 10

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      A judge in Chicago on Thursday set March 10 as the date on which the actor Jussie Smollett will be sentenced following his conviction in the filing of a false police report in which he claimed to have been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.A jury found Mr. Smollett guilty last year of five counts of felony disorderly conduct related to the false report; he was acquitted on another similar count. On Thursday, Mr. Smollett, formerly an actor on the Fox music-industry drama “Empire,” and his lawyers remotely attended his first court hearing following the conviction.Mr. Smollett, who was released on bond after his conviction and attended the brief hearing from New York, told the judge he would show up in person for his sentencing.In January 2019, Mr. Smollett reported to the police that two assailants had beaten him, yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him, placed a rope around his neck and poured bleach on his clothing in an early morning assault.Two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, who the police determined to have been the assailants, later told the jury at trial last year that Mr. Smollett had directed them to carry out the attack.Prosecutors argued that Mr. Smollett’s account was a hoax orchestrated for publicity.Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, has said his client plans to appeal the verdict. Mr. Smollett, who testified during the trial, maintained he was the victim of a real attack. His lawyers argued that the Osundairo brothers were liars who had attacked Mr. Smollett to scare him into hiring them as bodyguards, and who concocted a story to avoid prosecution themselves.Mr. Smollett’s conviction carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, has not yet indicated whether he would make a recommendation of prison time to the judge but has emphasized how serious he thought the case was, saying after the conviction that Mr. Smollett was “not repentant at all.”Some experts said they would find it surprising if Mr. Smollett were to be imprisoned because he was convicted of the lowest level felony offense and has no prior felony convictions. Mr. Uche said last month that he had “never seen a case like this where the person got jail time,” adding that he believed Mr. Smollett would be vindicated on appeal. More

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      Jussie Smollett Found Guilty of Reporting a Fake Hate Crime

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      Mr. Smollett was convicted of filing a false police report in 2019 claiming he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack. The jury deliberated for more than nine hours.A jury in Chicago found the actor Jussie Smollett guilty on Thursday of falsely reporting to the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic assault in 2019, an attack that investigators concluded was a hoax directed by the actor himself.With its finding, after more than nine hours of deliberation, the 12-person jury indicated it had chosen to believe the accounts of two brothers who testified that Mr. Smollett had asked them to mildly injure him as part of a publicity stunt.Mr. Smollett, wearing a dark gray suit and a blue shirt, sat upright in his chair, hands clasped, staring directly at the jury just after the verdict was read.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, said afterward that Mr. Smollett only made matters worse by continuing to stand by his account at trial.“This jury worked so hard,” Mr. Webb said, “and for Mr. Smollett to come up before them and lie for hours and hours and hours — that really compounded his misconduct.”Jussie Smollett, an actor in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire,” was found guilty of filing a false police report after staging a hate crime against himself.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressThe case dated back to the frigid early hours of Jan. 29, 2019, when Mr. Smollett — known then for his role in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire” — told the police he had been the victim of a hate crime near his apartment building in Chicago. Mr. Smollett said one of his attackers had even yelled, “This is MAGA country.”His account captured the attention of a politically polarized nation concerned with rising hate crime reports and the persistent threat of racism. But public support for Mr. Smollett quickly evaporated when investigators came to the conclusion three weeks later that he had staged the attack on himself.Chicago officials, upset at the amount of police work that was spent on the case, have sued Mr. Smollett to recoup some of the city’s costs. They were similarly critical in 2019 when the office of the city’s top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, who early on had recused herself from the case, citing a potential conflict, quietly dropped the charges in exchange for Mr. Smollett’s agreement to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service.The case was later revived by Mr. Webb, who reviewed that decision and ultimately announced that a grand jury had charged Mr. Smollett with six counts of felony disorderly conduct. Mr. Smollett was convicted on five counts on Thursday, relating to conversations he had with the police just after the attack. He was acquitted on the sixth count, which related to a follow-up conversation with an investigator two weeks later.The actor faces up to three years in prison. The judge did not set a sentencing date and released him on bond.His defense team said Mr. Smollett would appeal.“We remain confident that we’re going to come back and he’s going to be vindicated,” said Nenye Uche, one of the actor’s lawyers.Prosecutors argued in court that Mr. Smollett had instructed two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, on all of the details of the attack, specifying that they should punch him only hard enough to create a bruise, pour bleach on his clothing and place a rope around his neck like a noose. The prosecutors faulted Mr. Smollett for not cooperating adequately with the investigation by balking at turning over evidence like his cellphone.“Mr. Smollett didn’t want the crime solved,” Mr. Webb said during his closing argument on Wednesday. “He wanted to report it as a hate crime; he wanted media exposure; but he didn’t want the brothers apprehended.”Mr. Webb told the jury that Mr. Smollett staged the attack because he had received a death threat in the mail and was upset by the muted response of the producers behind “Empire,” the television show on which he starred.The defense came forward with a sharply different account of Mr. Smollett’s attitudes and behaviors. The actor had not been upset by the TV studio’s response to the letter, his lawyers said, and had, in fact, turned down its offer to have security drive Mr. Smollett to and from the set. They said the Osundairo brothers were liars who had attacked Mr. Smollett to scare him into hiring them as bodyguards, and who concocted a story to avoid prosecution themselves.Mr. Smollett’s lawyer Mr. Uche argued that prosecutors had not established that the actor had a clear motive for any scheme, and that, in fact, his client had every reason not to have faked an attack.“His lack of motive is pretty obvious: Media attention, he doesn’t like it,” Mr. Uche said. What is more, he said, Mr. Smollett had a music video shoot coming up and could not afford his face getting bruised.Mr. Smollett, 39, took the stand and testified for more than seven hours in an effort to counter the narrative of the brothers, who had detailed how Mr. Smollett planned the attack. He said his interactions with the brothers in the days and hours leading up to the attack had been harmless. A “dry run” in his car that the brothers had described to the jury as a planning exercise two days before the attack was really an aimless drive through Chicago smoking marijuana.But the jury chose to believe the brothers. Abimbola Osundairo, 28, a fitness aficionado who had appeared on “Empire” in minor roles, testified that the planning began when Mr. Smollett, whom he was helping train for the music video, texted him for help with something “on the low.”“He said he wanted me to beat him up,” Mr. Osundairo said of their meeting. “I looked puzzled, and then he explained he wanted me to fake beat him up.”Mr. Osundairo said he agreed to the plan because he felt “indebted” to Mr. Smollett for getting him a role as a stand-in on “Empire.” Olabinjo Osundairo, 30, who had also appeared on “Empire” in minor roles, said he participated to “curry favor” with Mr. Smollett.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Jussie Smollett Timeline: A Case With Twists and Turns

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      The case began in 2019 when the actor reported that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, and led to a trial in which he was accused of staging the attack himself.Nearly three years have passed since the actor Jussie Smollett reported that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in Chicago. The police initially investigated the incident as a possible hate crime, then accused Mr. Smollett of staging the attack himself. Charges were filed against Mr. Smollett, then dropped. A special prosecutor was appointed and charges were filed again, leading to his trial on charges of disorderly conduct for making a false report to the police.Here’s a timeline of how we got here.Jan. 29, 2019: Mr. Smollett, who is Black and gay, tells the police that at about 2 a.m., two masked men, one of whom he believed to be white, attacked him on the 300 block of East Lower North Water Street in downtown Chicago. The assailants, according to Mr. Smollett, hurled homophobic and racial slurs at him, put a rope around his neck and poured a chemical substance on him.Mr. Smollett says he went home and a close associate of his reported the incident to the police 40 minutes after it happened. Anthony Guglielmi, the chief spokesman for the Chicago Police Department, later told The Chicago Sun-Times that Mr. Smollett had been hesitant to call the police because of his status as a public figure.Law enforcement officials say they are treating the incident “as a possible hate crime.” At a follow-up visit by investigators, Mr. Smollett says the attackers mentioned “MAGA country,” a reference to the campaign slogan of former President Donald J. Trump.Celebrities, politicians and advocacy groups offer their support to Mr. Smollett. Fox, the network on which “Empire” airs, issues a statement saying the “entire studio, network and production stands united in the face of any despicable act of violence and hate.”Detectives comb through surveillance camera recordings but say they can’t find images of the attack.Jan. 30: Investigators announce the first possible break in the case: A surveillance image shows “potential persons of interest wanted for questioning” in connection to the case. The images are of two men with their backs to the camera.At this point, the F.B.I. is already investigating a threatening letter sent to Mr. Smollett at the “Empire” production offices in Chicago the week before.Jan. 31: Mr. Trump is asked about the incident in the Oval Office. He refers to it as “horrible” and added that it “doesn’t get worse.”The Smollett family releases a statement: “Jussie was the victim of a violent and unprovoked attack. We want to be clear, this was a racial and homophobic hate crime. Jussie has told the police everything from the very beginning. His story has never changed, and we are hopeful they will find these men and bring them to justice.”Feb. 1: Mr. Smollett releases his first public statement through his publicist. It says: “Let me start by saying that I’m OK. My body is strong but my soul is stronger. More importantly, I want to say thank you. The outpouring of love and support from my village has meant more than I will ever be able to truly put into words.”Acknowledging some skepticism about his story on social media, Mr. Smollett adds, “I am working with authorities and have been 100 percent factual and consistent on every level. Despite my frustrations and deep concern with certain inaccuracies and misrepresentations that have been spread, I still believe that justice will be served.”The Chicago police superintendent, Eddie T. Johnson, says in an interview with a local television station: “We have to remember, he’s a victim. You know, so we have to treat it like he’s a victim. We have no reason to think that he’s not being genuine with us.”Feb. 2: Mr. Smollett appears in public for the first time since he reported the attack, performing a concert in West Hollywood.“I have so many words on my heart that I want to say, but the most important thing I can say is, thank you so much, and that I’m OK,” Mr. Smollett tells the crowd.Feb. 4: The Chicago police say the people of interest have not been identified yet but they are continuing to follow up on leads.Feb. 11: The department reacts to phone records that Mr. Smollett turned over to investigators. The police had asked Mr. Smollett for access to his phone because he had been in conversation with his manager when the incident occurred. Mr. Smollett provides the police with redacted records that they say “do not meet the burden for a criminal investigation.”Feb. 13: Two brothers of Nigerian descent, Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, are detained by the authorities after a flight back home to Chicago from Nigeria. Police officers raid their home and, according to CBS Chicago, remove items including an “Empire” script and two hats.Feb. 14: Mr. Smollett gives his first interview about the incident to “Good Morning America,” where he is adamant that he is telling the truth.“It feels like if I had said it was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone Black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me much more,” Mr. Smollett tells ABC’s Robin Roberts. “A lot more.”He also says he is convinced that the men in the surveillance images were his attackers.“Because I was there,” Mr. Smollett says. “For me, when that was released, I was like, ‘OK, we’re getting somewhere.’ I don’t have any doubt in my mind that that’s them. Never did.”The Chicago police reveal publicly that at least one of the men detained has appeared as an extra on “Empire.” The department also says they “are not yet suspects.” Their lawyer, Gloria Schmidt, tells CBS Chicago: “They’re really baffled why they are people of interest. They really don’t understand how they even got information that linked them to this horrific crime. But they’re not guilty of it. They know that the evidence is going to prove them innocent. They send their best to Jussie.”The local news media releases its first reports that investigators are beginning to look at the possibility that this is a hoax, something the Chicago police dispute publicly.Feb. 15: In a whirlwind day, the detained brothers are identified as potential suspects by police, but that night are released without being charged. Investigators announce they are no longer considered suspects but do not say why.Feb. 16: The police say they are seeking to speak with Mr. Smollett again. Media outlets, including CNN, report that the two men have told investigators they were paid to take part in a hoax. Mr. Guglielmi says in a statement, “We can confirm that the information received from the individuals questioned by police earlier in the ‘Empire’ case has in fact shifted the trajectory of the investigation.”Lawyers for Mr. Smollett release a statement saying, “As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with.”It added: “One of these purported suspects was Jussie’s personal trainer who he hired to ready him physically for a music video. It is impossible to believe that this person could have played a role in the crime against Jussie or would falsely claim Jussie’s complicity.”The lawyers say that Mr. Smollett will “continue to cooperate” and that they “have no inclination to respond to ‘unnamed’ sources inside of the investigation.”Feb. 20: Fox releases a statement in support of Mr. Smollett amid reports that his role was being reduced on “Empire.” Later in the day, the Chicago police announce that they consider Mr. Smollett a suspect in the filing of a false report.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Jury in Jussie Smollett Trial Begins Deliberations

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      After closing arguments on Wednesday, the panel began considering whether the actor had staged a hate crime against himself, as the two men who attacked him have testified.The jury tasked with deciding whether Jussie Smollett falsely told the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic assault began deliberations on Wednesday and started to grapple with the two differing narratives of what happened on a freezing Chicago night in 2019.Prosecutors have accused Mr. Smollett of orchestrating the attack himself by instructing two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, to punch him just hard enough to create bruises, pour bleach on his clothing and place a rope around his neck like a noose while yelling racist and homophobic slurs.But the defense, which relied on more than seven hours of testimony by Mr. Smollett himself, has argued he was the victim of a real attack, perpetrated by the brothers, who then lied to investigators to avoid being prosecuted themselves.After six days of testimony, and a full day of closing arguments by both sides, the 12-person jury began considering the disorderly conduct charges late on Wednesday afternoon. But Judge James B. Linn agreed to suspend deliberations just after 5 p.m. because one of the jurors had reported to the court that he had made a prior commitment to attend a concert in which his child was participating.Earlier in the trial, the special prosecutor in the case, Daniel K. Webb, told the jury that Mr. Smollett had staged the attack because he was upset that the producers behind the television show on which he starred, “Empire,” had had a muted response to a death threat the actor had received in the mail.Mr. Webb argued on Wednesday that Mr. Smollett’s own account of what had occurred did not make sense. If the attack had not been planned, he said, the Osundairo brothers would not have known when and where Mr. Smollett would pass in those early morning hours when he was assaulted as he carried home a tuna sandwich from Subway.Mr. Smollett, he pointed out, initially reported that one of his attackers had been white even though Abimbola Osundairo, whom he knows well, is Black and is someone whose voice he has heard many times. Similarly, he cited Mr. Smollett’s refusal to turn over his phone and other potential evidence to the police as indications that the actor sought to impede the investigation.“Mr. Smollett didn’t want the crime solved,” Mr. Webb said in his closing. “He wanted to report it as a hate crime; he wanted media exposure; but he didn’t want the brothers apprehended.”Mr. Webb also said evidence indicated that Mr. Smollett “tampered” with the rope on his neck to make it look like it was fitted more tightly than when Olabinjo Osundairo put it over Mr. Smollett’s head. The prosecutor showed the jury an image of surveillance footage taken shortly after the attack and compared it with an image of Mr. Smollett when the police came, with the rope appearing tighter in the second image.On Monday, Mr. Smollett had denied tampering with the rope. He testified that when he returned to his apartment after the attack, he had taken the rope off, but his creative director, Frank Gatson, told him to put it back on so the police could see what had happened.“I was trying not to mess up the evidence,” Mr. Smollett said.Daniel K. Webb, center, the special prosecutor handling the Smollett case, arrives at court on Wednesday. Kamil Krzaczynski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn the defense’s closing argument, Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, said that prosecutors had not established a clear motive, and that, in fact, his client had every reason not to have faked an attack.“His lack of motive is pretty obvious: Media attention, he doesn’t like it,” Mr. Uche said. What is more, he said, Mr. Smollett had a music video shoot coming up and could not afford his face getting bruised.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Lawyers in Jussie Smollett Case Tangle Over Motive as Testimony Ends

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      Mr. Smollett was questioned Tuesday by the prosecution about his interactions with his attackers shortly before the 2019 assault.Testimony in the trial over whether Jussie Smollett lied to police about being the victim of a hate crime ended on Tuesday after the actor was questioned closely by the prosecution about his interactions with his attackers shortly before the assault.Deliberations in the case are expected to start Wednesday after closing arguments and six days of testimony in which two brothers said Mr. Smollett had staged the attack as a publicity stunt and the actor characterized them as rank liars.On Tuesday, Mr. Smollett fended off accusations that he had planned the assault with the brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, in the days and hours before the 2019 attack, describing their encounters as harmless.In one meeting two days before the assault, he said, he and Abimbola Osundairo had simply been smoking marijuana while Mr. Smollett drove the brothers around Chicago before a scheduled workout session. He had hired Abimbola Osundairo to help him get “ripped” for a music video, he said.“There was nothing strange or wrong going on,” Mr. Smollett said of his drive with the brothers.But the prosecution took issue with his account, grilling him Tuesday on why their drive had continued to circle the area where the attack later occurred.Similarly, Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor in the case, pressed Mr. Smollett about why he had continued to update Abimbola Osundairo about delays to his flight back to Chicago in the late-night hours of Jan. 28, 2019, shortly before the attack occurred.The brothers have testified that Mr. Smollett was keeping them apprised of the delay so they could move back the time of their prearranged attack on him, which occurred at about 2 a.m.Mr. Smollett testified that, actually, he was only keeping Abimbola Osundairo in the loop because they had plans to work out.Mr. Webb noted, though, that there were no follow-up texts or emails canceling the workout, which was scheduled for the morning of Jan. 29, after the attack. He asked Mr. Smollet whether Abimbola Osundairo showed up for the appointment that morning.“I’m saying I don’t know,” Mr. Smollett replied.Mr. Smollett also testified that on the night of the attack, he had been posting updates about his flight to his Instagram followers and that Abimbola Osundairo was not the only person who messaged him directly about it, suggesting that the messages did not indicate that they had been coordinating the attack.The back-and-forth often grew heated and Mr. Smollett grew flustered at times, leading Judge James Linn to urge him to answer the prosecutor’s questions directly.In testimony earlier in the week, the brothers had described how Mr. Smollett outlined in detail the planned attack after expressing disappointment that the producers of the television show he starred in, “Empire,” had not responded more seriously to a death threat he had received in the mail.An employee of the show disputed that contention Monday, reporting that the show had actually offered to get security to drive Mr. Smollett back and forth to his home from the studio, but the actor had refused.Mr. Smollett, 39, has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of disorderly conduct related to his report of the attack as a hate crime because of the racist and homophobic slurs uttered by his attackers. His lawyers have argued that the Osundairo brothers attacked him because they wanted to scare him into hiring them as his security detail. Mr. Smollett testified on Monday that Abimbola Osundairo persistently asked to act as his bodyguard, including after he received the threatening letter.Prosecutors have contended that the brothers only beat Mr. Smollett up enough to bruise but not seriously injure him and placed a rope around his neck, fashioned like a noose, to make it seem like he had been the victim of a hate crime. Mr. Smollett on Tuesday swung back on that narrative, suggesting his injuries had indeed been serious enough that, to this day, he has a scar under his right eye that won’t go away.Daniel K. Webb, special prosecutor in the Smollett case, arrives at the courthouse in Chicago on Monday, when he began his cross examination of Mr. Smollett.Kamil Krzaczynski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMuch of Mr. Webb’s questioning focused on events from Jan. 27, when the Osundairo brothers say Mr. Smollett took them through the “dry run,” driving them to an intersection near his apartment building and pointing out where he wanted the attack to occur.Mr. Smollett testified that on that day, he had gone to pick up Abimbola Osundairo for a workout session, and when Olabinjo Osundairo inexplicably joined him at the pickup spot, Mr. Smollett said he used an upcoming television interview as an excuse to cancel the workout and drive the brothers back home.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Jussie Smollett Tells Jury He Did Not Direct a Fake Attack on Himself

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      The actor, who is accused of asking two brothers to mildly attack him, and then reporting it as a hate crime, took the stand at his criminal trial on charges related to the 2019 assault.Jussie Smollett took the stand on Monday in an effort to convince a Chicago jury that he did not orchestrate a racist and homophobic hate crime against himself but, instead, was the victim of both a real attack and the police’s rush to judgment in charging him.Mr. Smollett, 39, submitted himself to questioning in his own trial to rebut the testimony of two key witnesses, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, brothers who told the court last week that Mr. Smollett had instructed them in detail on how to attack him.The Osundairo brothers said Mr. Smollett took them through a “dry run” of the attack on the day before it was supposed to occur in January 2019 and asked one of them to bruise him without inflicting real injuries while the other put a rope around his neck and poured bleach on him.Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Smollett staged the attack because he was upset that the show on which he starred, the Fox hip-hop drama “Empire,” did not take seriously a threatening letter he had received at the studio.But Mr. Smollett sought to undercut the prosecution’s explanation, testifying that he had refused the studio’s offer of additional security, which would have driven him each day from his home to the set.“I’m a grown man,” Mr. Smollett said. “I don’t need to be driven around like Miss Daisy.”He also supported the defense contention that the brothers attacked him so that he might be scared enough to hire them as his private security. Mr. Smollett said that Abimbola Osundairo was persistent in trying to act as his bodyguard, at times behaving when they went out in ways that reminded him of the “Secret Service.”And Mr. Smollett’s version of what happened on Jan. 25, 2019, just days before the attack, when the prosecution says Mr. Smollett asked Abimbola Osundairo for help “on the low,” was completely different. He was seeking a meeting, not to plan his own assault, but to arrange to get an herbal steroid from Nigeria that helps people lose body fat and is illegal in the United States.“At any point in time did you talk to him about some hoax?” Mr. Smollett’s lawyer, Nenye Uche, asked.“No,” Mr. Smollett replied.During their car ride later, they did not plan the attack, as the prosecution argued, but smoked marijuana, Mr. Smollett said.“We drove around and smoked and that was that,” he testified.Olabinjo Osundairo, at the courthouse, where he testified Thursday that Mr. Smollett had orchestrated the attack.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressAbimbola Osundairo, Olabinjo’s brother, told the court last week that Mr. Smollett was upset that a threatening letter he received had not been taken more seriously.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressMr. Smollett also sought early in his testimony to indicate just how happy he had been with his role on “Empire,” and, when asked directly, said he had no problem with Fox. Instead Mr. Smollett, who is gay, testified that it had been a blessing to win the role of Jamal Lyon, a gay singer-songwriter, that so closely mirrored his identity and to eventually earn $100,000 per episode.“I had never seen a gay man — let alone a gay Black man — portrayed ever,” Mr. Smollett said. “I really, really wanted to do it.”Over the course of the trial, prosecutors have sought to paint a picture of the attack as a bid for publicity, pointing to how, days before the attack, Mr. Smollett had received the letter at the studio for “Empire.” It included a red stick figure hanging from a noose, a homophobic slur and the acronym “MAGA,” said Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor in the case, in the courtroom last week.“He devised this fake hate crime to take place so that the ‘Empire’ studio would take this more seriously,” Mr. Webb said, “because this fake hate crime would get media attention.”But the showrunner for “Empire” at the time, Brett Mahoney, testified earlier on Monday that the show had actually taken the letter “very seriously,” and sought to provide Mr. Smollett with additional security.As he began his testimony, Mr. Smollett depicted himself to the jury with a lengthy biographical summary of his career as someone who grew up in a middle-class family of performers, received some work as a child actor, became deeply involved in charity organizations and returned to acting, landing the major role on “Empire.”In January 2019, when the attack was reported, public sympathy for Mr. Smollett was immediate and widespread. But as the police investigation into the report stalled, suspicion grew about Mr. Smollett’s account, though the actor stood by it.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Jussie Smollett’s Lawyers Dispute Account That Attack Was Staged

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      Under questioning by Mr. Smollett’s defense team, two brothers who say they participated in a fake attack denied suggestions they had lied to avoid prosecution.Jussie Smollett’s lawyers suggested in court on Thursday that two brothers at the center of the case attacked the actor to scare him into hiring them as his personal security, and later, to avoid prosecution, falsely told the police that Mr. Smollett had planned it all as a hoax.The brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, have each testified that Mr. Smollett gave them detailed instructions on where and how to mildly attack him in January 2019.“You attacked Jussie because you wanted to scare him into hiring you as security,” said a lawyer for Mr. Smollett, Shay Allen, “so you could go back to L.A. and get paid $5,000 a week, didn’t you?”“No, sir,” Abimbola Osundairo replied.During cross-examination, the brothers, both aspiring actors and fitness aficionados, disputed that and other defense contentions about the attack. During more than 11 hours of testimony, which touched on minute details like Mr. Smollett’s grocery list and workout regimen, they told the court that Mr. Smollett instructed them to yell racist and homophobic slurs at him — and say, “This is MAGA country” — during the attack.During one of the brothers’ testimony, the defense asked for a mistrial, suggesting the judge had misspoken during the proceedings and later asked for the judge to acquit Mr. Smollett. But Judge James Linn ruled against Mr. Smollett in both instances.Thursday was a pivotal day in the trial as the prosecution, whose case relies heavily on the brothers’ credibility, rested after each brother told the jury in detail that Mr. Smollett had knowingly made a false police report about the attack.Abimbola Osundairo, 28, testified on Wednesday that Mr. Smollett, who is gay, dreamed up the scheme because he had been disappointed by what he saw as a muted response from the television studio to a death threat he received days earlier.Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo both appear in minor roles in the television show “Empire,” in which Mr. Smollett had starred. Abimbola Osundairo said he had agreed to participate in the hoax because he felt “indebted” to Mr. Smollett for securing him a role as a stand-in on the show, while Olabinjo Osundairo said that, as an aspiring actor, he had agreed because he wanted to “curry favor” with Mr. Smollett.The defense’s efforts to undermine the brothers’ credibility included questions about guns and drugs found in Abimbola Osundairo’s home and accusations that Olabinjo Osundairo had a history of making homophobic comments.Olabinjo Osundairo is not legally allowed to possess a gun because he was convicted of aggravated battery several years ago. But a detective testified earlier in the week that the guns were all Abimbola Osundairo’s and were owned legally and described the amount of cocaine discovered as “very small.”One of Mr. Smollett’s lawyers, Tamara Walker, also cited discrepancies between Olabinjo Osundairo’s testimony and what he had said to the grand jury in the case. He told the grand jury, for example, that he had decided to pour bleach, instead of gasoline, onto Mr. Smollett because he wanted to avoid being seen filling up a gas container on a surveillance camera. In court on Thursday, though, he testified that he had chosen bleach because he thought it would be safer on Mr. Smollett.The brothers remained composed during their sessions on the witness stand even as they were being questioned about several written conversations that Olabinjo Osundairo has had in which he made remarks that the defense cited as homophobic.Olabinjo Osundairo, 30, denied any bias, explained the remarks as mistakes he had made because he was upset and asserted that he had “no hate for anybody.” The prosecution had earlier in the day shown the jury a photo of the brothers at the Chicago Pride Parade in 2015 in which they were dressed as Trojan warriors for a float that centered around the condom brand of the same name.The mistrial request arose from this line of questioning as Judge Linn at one point described Ms. Walker’s questions about Mr. Osundairo’s past comments as “very collateral matters.” She argued, unsuccessfully, that the judge’s remark had discredited a part of the defense argument in front of the jury.A third lawyer for Mr. Smollett, Heather Widell, accused Judge Linn of making “snarling faces” during the defense questioning. The judge objected to Ms. Widell’s characterization and pointed out her own “smiles and frowns.”“There is no mistrial here,” Judge Linn said. “Frankly, I’m stunned you’d consider a mistrial based on that little colloquy.”Jussie Smollett’s trial entered its fourth day as the prosecution wound down its case and the defense challenged the credibility of two brothers who say the attack Mr. Smollett reported was a hoax.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressEarlier in the day, Olabinjo Osundairo testified that during the attack on Jan. 29, 2019, while his brother and Mr. Smollett were on the ground, he put a noose around Mr. Smollett’s face and made sure to pour the bleach on Mr. Smollett’s clothing, not his skin, to avoid severely injuring him.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More