“Empire” star Jussie Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts by a grand jury in Chicago for allegedly staging a phony racist and homophobic attack against himself, sources said Friday.
The 36-year-old actor was hit Thursday with disorderly-conduct charges for allegedly filing a false police report and lying to cops, according to the Cook County State Attorney’s Office.
Smollett, who is black and gay, was originally charged with just one felony count of disorderly conduct on Feb. 20 after claiming that he was attacked in late January by two masked men who hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him and put his neck in a noose.
“Jussie Smollett knew that at the time . . . there was no reasonable ground for believing that such offenses had been committed,” the indictment states, according to CBS Chicago.
Smollett is accused of recruiting two men to orchestrate the attack because he was upset with his pay on the TV show, police have said.
The indictment, which expands the criminal case against the actor, centers on allegedly false statements he gave to two Chicago cops. It includes two separate sets of charges — one per officer.
The first set of charges relates to the claims Smollett made in his police report. The second pertains to a follow-up interview that he had later in the day.
Each of the 16 counts carries a possible sentence of up to four years in prison, but experts expect Smollett to cut a deal — which would allow him to walk free, according to WLS-TV.
Smollett’s publicist blasted the number of counts brought against the actor on Friday — calling it “prosecutorial overkill.”
“This redundant and vindictive indictment is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make headlines,” said Smollett’s legal rep, Mark Geragos. “Jussie adamantly maintains his innocence even if law enforcement has robbed him of that presumption.”
Geragos claimed the charges were an attempt to “distract from the internal investigation launched” into the Chicago Police Department leaking information about the case to the press.
With Post wires