The first formal request has been filed for a special prosecutor after the state’s attorney’s officedropped all 16 chargesthat accusedJussie Smollettof staging a hate crime on himself, PEOPLE confirms.
Chicago-based attorney Saani Mohammed tells PEOPLE he filed a 10-page petition on Thursday asking for a special prosecutor to take up the case againstEmpire‘s Smollett.
In addition, Mohammed is asking the special prosecutor to look into whether Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office interfered with the investigation.
“I want to see that the right thing is done, the right way,” Mohammed tells PEOPLE about his decision to file his petition.
“I want to let the public know that the justice system is for everybody. There’s no separate justice system for different classes of people,” adds Mohammed, who was an assistant state’s attorney in Foxx’s office until last month to pursue private practice.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
On Smollett’s dropped charges, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office previously confirmed to PEOPLE: “After reviewing all the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case.”
Smollett, 36, had faced16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly fabricating details of an assaultthat occurred around 2 a.m. local time on January 29 on a street in his Chicago neighborhood.
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Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson later told reporters that two men — Nigerian brothers Abel and Ola Osundairo, who were acquaintances of Smollett —admitted their rolesbut said they were acting at Smollett’s direction, and police recovered a$3,500 check they portrayed as Smollett’s payment to the two men for the alleged hoax attack. Police said phone records revealed Smollett had spoken with the men an hour before the attack, an hour after the attack, and while they were out of the country as the investigation unfolded.
The brothers subsequently issued an apology through their lawyer for their involvement in the incident, though they did not specify what they did. Neither has been charged.
Smollett’s attorney, Patricia Brown Holmes, previously told reporters that Smollett’s $3,500 check to the brothers was to cover Smollett’s nutrition and training regimen. “They were his trainers,” she said.
Smollett’s attorneys and reps did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment regarding Mohammed’s petition.
RELATED VIDEO: Jussie Smollett Likely Wouldn’t Have Gone to Prison Even if Found Guilty at Trial
Meanwhile, state attorney Foxx has been receiving backlash after she recused herself from the case before Smollett was charged and assigned the case to her deputy.
Then, theChicago Sun-Timeslater reported that Tina Tchen, a Chicago lawyer and former chief of staff to first ladyMichelle Obama, put Foxx in touch with members of Smollet’s family days after he told police he was the victim of a hate attack.
In a statement to PEOPLE, Tchen said: “I know members of the Smollett family based on prior work together. Shortly after Mr. Smollett reported he was attacked, as a family friend, I contacted Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who I also know from prior work together. My sole activity was to put the chief prosecutor in the case in touch with an alleged victim’s family who had concerns about how the investigation was being characterized in public.”
Kim Foxx.Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images
In his petition, Mohammed refers to Tchen as a “politically connected ally” and alleges Foxx improperly “used her position to intervene in the investigation” on Smollett’s behalf, according to theTribune.
Foxx’s office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment regarding Mohammed’s petition.
While charges that he staged his own hate crime were dropped, Smollett has not been exonerated of the alleged conduct, nor does this mean there will be no further criminal charges brought against him.
Thursday was also the deadline for Smollett to pay Chicago $130,000 for investigation costs. However, the star failed to pay the amount, according toCBS Chicago.
The City of Chicago sent Smollett a letter on March 28, two days after the charges were dropped, demanding he pay more than $130,000 to cover “overtime hours in the investigation of this matter” after the police investigation “revealed that you knowingly filed a false police report and had in fact orchestrated your own attack.”
PEOPLE has not verified whether Smollett has responded to the letter.
source: people.com
