Two brothers who authorities said took part in a staged attack on actor Jussie Smollett were “betrayed” by the celebrity, their attorney told CNN on Monday.
“I believe my clients were betrayed,” Gloria Schmidt said on CNN’s “AC 360,” referring to brothers Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo. “You have to look at what kind of relationship they had with Mr. Smollett. He’s a celebrity. This is somebody who is in a position of power over my clients.”
She added: “We’ve seen a lot of stories in the news where celebrities think they might be above the law. It’s just not the case.”
Smollett reported to police in January that he had been attacked in Chicago in an incident that ended with a noose around his neck. Police initially investigated the case as a possible hate crime.
Mark Geragos, Smollett’s attorney, spoke with Anderson Cooper on Friday and said Smollett refused to sign a police complaint after the incident because “he could not believe it.”
“I haven’t’ seen one piece of evidence and they don’t have one piece of evidence that they’ve turned over that links Jussie to this,” Geragos said, referring to allegations that the attack was orchestrated.
Smollett, an actor on the Fox drama “Empire,” was recently indicted on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct by a Cook County grand jury.
The counts in the indictment obtained by CNN say Smollett gave statements to a Chicago police officer after the incident and to a detective. Details in some of those statements were different, the indictment says.
The indictment says Smollett told police he was attacked by two men who used racial and homophobic slurs during an encounter at 2 a.m.
After police detained the two brothers, who were described as “persons of interest” in mid-February, police sources revealed that authorities suspected Smollett knew the men and had paid them $3,500 to stage the attack. The men were released without being charged.
Smollett has denied any involvement in orchestrating an attack.