Two brothers who say they helped Jussie Smollett stage a racist and homophobic attack against himself filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the
CHICAGO — Two brothers who say they helped Jussie Smollett stage a racist and homophobic attack against himself filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the « Empire » actor’s attorneys, alleging that they repeatedly asserted publicly that the brothers carried out a real, bigoted attack on Smollett despite knowing that wasn’t true.
A lawyer for Olabinjo Osundairo and Abimbola Osundairo filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the brothers. It names Mark Geragos and his law firm as defendants.
The suit contends that even after police and prosecutors alleged that the Jan. 29 attack was staged and after all charges were dropped against Smollett, Geragos and his firm continued to say publicly in widely reported statements that the brothers « led a criminally homophobic, racist and violent attack against Mr. Smollett, » even though they knew that wasn’t the case.
The lawsuit says that the lawyers’ repeated statements that Smollett told the truth all along and that the brothers were lying caused them « significant emotional distress, » and made them feel unsafe and alienated them from the local community.
