Jussie Smollett Officially Named Suspect in Police Investigation

The Chicago Police Department has reportedly named Jussie Smollett as a suspect for filing a false police report.

Smollett’s case has taken many strange turns since it broke in late January. In the last week, new evidence has come to suggest that he orchestrated his own assault in Chicago, making it look like a hate crime. On Wednesday evening, Chicago P.D. spokesman Anthony Guglielmi announced that Smollett was officially a suspect.

“Case Update: Jussie Smollett is now officially classified as a suspect in a criminal investigation by [Chicago Police] for filing a false police report (Class 4 felony),” he tweeted. “Detectives are currently presenting evidence before a Cook County Grand Jury.”

The case has been a strange one from the start. Smollett told police that he was attacked by two masked men in what Sen. Kamala Harris called “an attempted modern day lynching.” However, when police finally arrested two persons of interest in the case, they were African-American brothers Ola and Abel Osundairo.

One of the brothers had worked with Smollett on the set of Empire as an extra, and it was from their interviews with police that authorities began to suspect Smollett had planned his “attack.” Security footage appeared to show them with Smollett in the elevator of his apartment building shortly before the scuffle, and police suspect Smollett paid them $3,500 for the hoax.

According to a report by The Blast, the Osundairo brothers were very close to testifying in front of the grand jury themselves on Wednesday, however Smollett’s attorney was able to call and postpone their testimony. Smollett himself continues to claim he is an innocent victim in the whole affair, and has brought on criminal defense attorneys including Todd S. Pugh and Victor P. Henderson to help clear his name.

“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,” they said in a statement to Deadline last week. “He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack. Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”

Smollett has not given additional interviews with police. The Grand Jury will decide whether or not to indict the actor.