What Nerve: Jussie Smollett Sues Chicago For “Malicious Prosecution”

In filing a fictitious hate crime report in January, actor Jussie Smollett inflamed national racial tensions and forced the city of Chicago to waste thousands of dollars and man-hours investigating a claim that turned out to be completely fake. As such, the city has filed a lawsuit against the former Empire star in an attempt to recover restitution in the amount of $130,106. Instead of quietly paying this total in an act of penance for his (unpunished) crime, Smollett is filing a countersuit against the city, accusing police and prosecutors of subjecting him to “malicious prosecution.”

We’ll say one thing for the guy – he’s got a hell of a lot of nerve.

Named in Smollett’s lawsuit are the City of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department, Chicago PD detectives Michael Theis and Edward Wodnicki, CDP Superintendent Eddie Johnson, and the bodybuilding brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo.

Smollett, absurdly, continues to insist that he was attacked on the streets of Chicago in January.

In a statement, a spokesman for Chicago’s Law Department said, “The City stands by its original complaint and will continue to pursue this litigation. The judge in this case has already ruled in our favor once, and we fully expect to be successful in defeating these counterclaims.”

Oddly enough, Smollett did not include Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on the defendant’s list, even though this is supposed to be a lawsuit about malicious prosecution.

But maybe that’s because it was Foxx herself who decided to drop the 16-count indictment against Smollett for reasons that remain unclear to this day.

By doing that, Foxx has given Smollett just enough room to make asinine claims like “This case was decided in Mr. Smollett’s favor and in a manner which indicates his innocence because all 16 counts of the criminal indictment were dismissed two and a half weeks after the indictment was filed.”

This is almost as ridiculous as Smollett’s original hate crime claim, and Foxx should be ashamed of herself for leaving the city of Chicago open to this sort of litigation.

Our fervent hope is that the civil courts can correct – in some small measure – the injustice perpetrated by Kim Foxx’s office. Jussie Smollett does not deserve a dime of compensation, and he needs to make Chicago whole for the money and time wasted on this hoax. Meanwhile, voters need to demand that Foxx explain how she handled this case before they give her another term in office.