Jussie Smollett’s attorneys are pretty irate about the city of Chicago suing their client for the cost of investigating his alleged hate crime. In fact, a motion’s been filed stating that they had no idea how far the city was going to go to investigate and in so many words, it’s their problem for spending so much money. It states that the “filing of a police report, in and of itself, does not necessitate a sprawling investigation nor does it, as a practical matter, usually result in an investigation as extensive as the one the CPD chose to undertake in this case.” The attorneys also argue that all a police report does is enable “the police and prosecutors to decide whether and how to investigate.”
The police made it known that the 1,836 hours spent on the case was necessary and maintain that not only should it be paid by Smollett but that there’s still towering evidence to show that he did it. “Whether it’s Chicago or any other U.S. city, when he reported a vicious hate crime it was going to be investigated at the highest level of vigor and detail,” Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated. The investigation included canvassing the area for witnesses, dozens of interviews, scientific analysis of the rope and the liquid Smollett claimed was thrown at him, the collection of hours of surveillance video from cameras mounted on buildings, inside taxi cabs and from cameras along miles of city streets.
And the case is still going on because a special prosecutor’s been assigned to the case to analyze the actions of Cook County top prosecutor Kim Foxx dismissing the total 16 charges against him. Smollett’s attorneys feel it’s all retaliation at this point saying “The city’s claims and purported damages are a vindictive effort to prosecute charges that the State’s Attorney pursued and then chose to drop,”according to their filing calling the lawsuit asking for the $130,000 a “perverse tactic” since charges were dropped. No comment from attorney William J. Quinlan who made the filing has been made yet and the city’s legal department said they don’t comment on pending cases.
As for the prospect of the motion to have the $136,000 Smollett’s being asked to repay the city being successful, not so legal expert David Erickson, a former state appellate judge who teaches at Chicago Kent College of Law says. He went on to say “If, in fact, there’s a valid claim that the city inflated the cost in doing this investigation then the judge can have a hearing. But this is a silly motion that’s not going anywhere.”
The ruling for whether the suit against Smollett will be thrown out will take place on October 22nd. We’ll be reporting on this as more details become available.
