Smollett to learn his fate in court today

More than three years after Jussie Smollett told police he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack on a dark, cold Chicago street, all of the questions swirling around the actor — from whether he staged a fake attack to why he would do such a thing — now boil down to two: Will he admit he lied to police and will he be sent to prison?Today, three months after a jury found him guilty of lying to police, those questions will be answered when Smollett, a onetime star of the television show “Empire,” returns for sentencing to the courtroom where he was found guilty of lying to police about an attack prosecutors contended he orchestrated himself.Smollett was convicted of five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct — for lying to police. He was acquitted on a sixth count. He faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison per count.Cook County Judge James Linn can order the maximum sentence, a much shorter sentence or put Smollett on probation, meaning he won’t have to spend time behind bars. And he can order a fine and restitution — the amount of which could reach tens of thousands of dollars.Defendants convicted of lying to police, one of the least serious felonies in Illinois, rarely go to prison. But this is a rare case.Prosecutors showed Smollett, who is Black and gay, went to extraordinary lengths in January 2019 to stage a hate crime. He hired and paid two brothers to carry out the attack, prosecutors said, told them what racist and homophobic slurs to shout, and to yell that Smollett was in “MAGA Country,” a reference to the campaign slogan of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.The brothers testified that Smollett gave them money to buy the rope they were to fashion into a noose around his neck and the ski masks to hide their faces. He then pointed them to where he wanted the scene to play out in the hopes it would be captured by a surveillance camera.In doing so, he sparked already raw emotions over issues such as race and sexual identity in the country, and triggered a massive investigation in a city involving dozens of officers in what Smollett has maintained was a very real attack by two men he did not recognize.During the hearing, prosecutors and Smollett’s attorneys will get a chance to present witnesses and allow Smollett to make a statement. And unlike the trial, Linn has agreed to let photographers and a television camera inside court for the hearing — meaning the public will for the first time get to see and hear Smollett speak in court.A key question is whether Special Prosecutor Dan Webb will ask Linn to sentence Smollett to jail or prison. Webb, in an interview with The Associated Press, would not say.”I think this will probably be a point that I make in sentencing,” Webb said, “that not only did Mr. Smollett lie to the police and wreak havoc here in the city for weeks on end for no reason whatsoever, but then he compounded the problem by lying under oath.”To drive home that point, some legal experts say they expect Webb to call law enforcement officials to testify.”Somebody from the CPD (Chicago Police Department) can testify how this crime directly impacted the police department, diverted resources away from actual crimes and the cost the city incurred,” said Joe McMahon, who as a special prosecutor won a murder conviction for Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke in the 2014 fatal shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald.McMahon and others also said Webb might call witnesses to testify about the impact that Smollett’s scheme may have had on legitimate victims of racist and homophobic attacks.”They could say that his (Smollett’s) false report made it less likely that real victims will come forward and will continue to suffer in silence,” McMahon said.