After less than a week behind bars on a 150-day sentence for faking a hate crime, Jussie Smollett will be walking out of the Cook County Jail today
A one-page order unceremoniously released by the Illinois Appellate Court today in a 2-1 decision granted the motion from the formeractor’s lawyers for a stay of the sentence. Denied an appeal by the sentencing judge last week, the defense team sought to set Smollett free while his appeal on five felony convictions is pending.
The Appellate Court judge agreed, citing that Smollett likely already would have served his jail time sentence before his appeal had gotten very far. The order also noted that the actor had never been convicted of a violent crime. In fact, the paperwork’s only real demand was that Smollett put up a $150,000 personal recognizance bond.The process around that bond and Smollett walking out a free man for now is taking place, I hear.
Last week, just before being led away by deputies after a visibly angered Judge James Linn handed down the sentence, Smollett stood up at the defense table and yelled, “I am not suicidal!” “If anything happens to me in there, I did not do it,” the actor continued. As he was being escorted out of the courtroom, Smollett raised his fist in the air and loudly declared: “I am not suicidal, I am innocent!”
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