Newly released police files say that soon after the actor was charged with faking a hate-crime attack, prosecutors were thinking of settling the case.
Documents released on Thursday suggested that just days after Jussie Smollett’s 16-count indictment, prosecutors in Chicago were thinking of settling his charges of staging a hate crime, deepening the mystery of why they so quickly changed their mind about the case.
Mr. Smollett, 36, had been accused of paying two acquaintances to stage an attack against himself in which they shouted racist and homophobic slurs and placed a noose around his neck. In the days after his indictment on Feb. 28, Chicago police detectives met with a prosecutor from the state’s attorney’s office to turn over materials related to the investigation, according to a detective’s report.
At that time, the detective wrote, the prosecutor told them that “she felt the case would be settled with Smollett paying the city of Chicago $10,000 in restitution and doing community service.” The report, which was among about 500 pages released on Thursday, did not say exactly when the meeting occurred but indicated it happened before March 11.
On March 26, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office formally dropped all 16 felony counts against him, saying that Mr. Smollett had agreed to forfeit the $10,000 bond paid for his release and that he was not a threat to public safety.
Chicago officials, including the mayor at the time, Rahm Emanuel, and the police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, denounced the move. Mr. Johnson said he had not been aware of the decision to drop charges until the day prosecutors did so, though the documents released on Thursday indicate that his detectives had known for at least two weeks that the case might soon be resolved.
A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office, Tandra Simonton, said it could not comment on grand jury proceedings, and she did not respond to a question about the timing of the decision to settle the case.
