Actor Jussie Smollett, who was convicted of staging a hate crime in an effort to increase his own fame, was late to his own sentencing hearing on Thursday — and his bodyguards reportedly knocked down a reporter as they ushered him into the courthouse.
Townhall shared a video, which originally aired on CBS Chicago, that showed Smollett — surrounded by family members, security, and reporters — on his way into the court. Reporters could be heard shouting questions at Smollett as they walked, and his bodyguards shouted to the reporters to get back and get out of the way.
WATCH:
Jussie Smollett's bodyguards throw a reporter to the ground as Smollett approaches the courthouse for his sentencing. pic.twitter.com/HmmwzZSfSN
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 10, 2022
“Jussie, you’re about — you’re about to meet your fate,” one reporter said. “Do you have anything to say? Do you plan — do you plan to apologize before the judge today, Jussie?”
“Back up,” one of the bodyguards warned the gaggle of reporters. “Appreciate it, appreciate it.”
“You’re about to meet your fate, what do you have to say, Jussie?” the reporter asked again.
“Move out of the way,” a bodyguard said, pushing forward.
“You don’t shove me, man,” the reporter said as he was pushed backward. “You know that’s called a battery … You just knocked a man over, back up! Come here, get up.”
“As you see, his bodyguards are getting a little bit violent with the — ah — as he approaches the building late. He just tossed a photographer down,” the reporter continued. “But Smollett is here, he’s entering the courthouse, but he’s now in the building — kind of a violent entrance, shoving and throwing people around. One member of the press corps hit the dirt.”
Breitbart reporter Alana Mastrangelo also noted Smollett’s tardiness, tweeting, “Jussie Smollett is LATE for his own sentencing today.”
“Jussie Smollett‘s body guards get ‘violent’ with reporters as the hate crime hoaxer arrives late to his own sentencing. ‘One member of the press corps hit the dirt’ reports CBS Chicago,” she added.
Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, along with probation, and he was also ordered to pay nearly $150,000 in combined restitution and fines.
As The Daily Wire reported:
Actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, followed by 30 months on probation, and ordered to $120,000 in restitution and $25,000 in fines during his sentencing on Thursday.
Smollett told police on January 29, 2019, that he was attacked by two men in Chicago at 2 a.m. who he claimed made racist and homophobic slurs, wrapped a rope around his neck and poured an “unknown substance” on him, and yelled this is “MAGA country.”
Police later obtained footage of the two men, who are brothers, in question and detained them at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport a couple of weeks later after they returned from Nigeria. Police later released the two brothers, saying that they were not suspects in the investigation.
He was also treated to quite the tongue-lashing from Cook County Judge James Linn.
WATCH:
Jussie Smollett just got murdered by a judge pic.twitter.com/FDfHjEMHPp
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 11, 2022