[disquieting,
suspenseful music playing]
[wind whistling]
[reporter 1] A disturbing story
developing tonight in Chicago.
Actor and musician Jussie Smollett,
from the hit show Empire,
was attacked and beaten
early this morning.
[reporter 2] He was walking at 2:00 a.m.
when he was approached by two unknown men
who yelled racial and h*m* slurs.
To think that I had two white guys
attack a Black man in this city
was disgusting to me.
[reporter 3] He was jumped by two men,
putting a noose around his neck.
[reporter 4] Support for Smollett
exploding.
[reporter 5] Viola Davis, John Legend,
and Vivica Fox tweeting their support.
I've seen it last night.
I think that's horrible.
It doesn't get worse.
[dramatic, intriguing music playing]
I thought it was
a horrible crime at first,
until it started to fall apart.
-[loud crash]
-[officer 1] Go!
[reporter 6] Police say they have seen
no evidence of an as*ault.
Who is out in the street
when it's cold as sh*t out there?
Do you believe all the details
that you've heard so far about this?
I don't wanna say it's suspicious,
but it seems sensational.
I was talking to a friend, and I said,
"I just want them to find them."
[sniffles] And she said,
"Sweetie, they're not gonna find them."
Breaking news as we come on the air.
[man 1] Back up!
[newscaster] Police are investigating
whether Smollett made the whole story up.
That was mind-blowing.
[reporter 7] Two Nigerian brothers
were arrested
in connection with the as*ault.
Oh my God. This is this is madness.
If he really did do this for attention,
then he has to pay the price.
I would not be my mother's son
if I was capable of one drop
of what I have been accused of.
[woman 1] Most people
don't really know the truth
and what the actual evidence
in the case was.
Did you ever once think,
"What happens if he's telling the truth?"
[Jussie] Back up.
Somebody said, like,
"Police in Chicago are r*cist."
[protesters chanting]
"So they might probably
trying to frame him."
What the f*ck is going on?
The twists and turns of it
are really jaw-dropping.
[dramatic music continues]
The biggest question is,
"Who really can we trust
to tell us what happened here?"
-[inhales]
-[music abates]
[wind gusts]
[disquieting music drones]
[music fades]
This is the first time in my life
that I've ever agreed to speak publicly
about this case, and it will be the last.
[solemn, intriguing music playing]
And it's already getting me fired up.
[distant police siren wails]
[beep]
[dispatcher] Chicago Emergency. Williams.
[man 1] I just need the police to come by.
Um I work for an artist.
I I don't really wanna say his name,
but somebody jumped him
or something like that,
and I just wanna report it
and make sure he's all right.
He didn't want me to call you guys,
but I feel like we need to make a report.
[chatter over police radio]
[Melissa] Police were called
to a condominium in Streeterville.
[officer 1] 10-4, on scene.
[Melissa] A very high-end area.
It's near the lake.
For lack of a better term,
it's very, uh, yuppie.
[officer 1] We're on scene.
[Melissa] They meet a subject
in the lobby.
-[officer 2] Are you Frank?
-Yes.
[officer 2] How's it going?
[Frank] I don't know. I'm waiting to see.
[Melissa] He's reporting
that his associate
is the victim of a hate crime.
He is like a star.
He works on the show Empire.
So I think he doesn't want that
to be a big deal.
-You understand what I'm saying?
-[officer 1] Okay. You guys live together?
No, no. I'm just his creative director.
-My name is Frank Gatson.
-[officer 1] Okay.
[intriguing music continues]
Come on in, sir.
[officer 1] Any weapons or anything
in the apartment?
[Frank] No. No.
[Melissa] The officers get
to the apartment and see the victim,
an actor called Jussie Smollett
The reason I called you
is 'cause of this sh*t.
[Melissa] with a noose around his neck.
-[officer 1] You wanna take it off?
-I do. I just wanted y'all to see it.
[Melissa] That was something
that I've never come across
in an investigation in 30 years.
I thought it was very disturbing.
I thought it was repulsive.
-You're filming us, right?
-[officer 1] Yeah, this is all videotaped.
-Why?
-I don't wanna be filmed.
Okay, so can we Can you turn it off?
[officer 1] Yeah. You're giving us
permission to shut it off?
[Jussie] Those moments changed
the trajectory of my entire life.
[beep]
My story has never changed.
My story has remained intact.
[clears throat]
Trust me, people have come to me and said,
"Just say that you did it."
Why say I did something if I didn't do it?
[suspenseful music playing]
That night, I landed in Chicago,
and Frank Gatson,
who's my creative director, picked me up.
And then we got back to the apartment.
[door closes]
There was no food,
and so I went out to Walgreens,
thinking that they were 24 hours.
Walgreens was closed,
so I went to the Subway across the street.
I texted my manager.
I said, "Yo, call me when you can."
He called me immediately.
-[chatter over cell phone]
-[Jussie] I'm good.
-And while he was on the phone, I heard
-[man 1] Empire.
[Jussie] And I didn't answer.
I kept walking.
And then I heard
[man 2] Aren't you
that Empire f*gg*t n*gg*r?
[Jussie] I turned around, and I said,
"What did you just say to me?"
-One of them said
-[man 1] This is MAGA country.
[tense music playing]
[Jussie] Punches me right in the face,
so I punched his a*s back.
[Jussie groans]
They were wearing balaclavas,
and I was able to see around the eyes
and right here.
The person was pale-skinned, very clear.
There was a second person
kicking me in my back.
And, uh, then it just stopped.
-[music abates]
-[wind whistling]
[low, disquieting music playing]
Then I looked down, and I see
that there's a rope around my neck.
[cell phone vibrating]
[man 3] It was about
three o'clock in the morning.
I got a phone call
from my chief of detectives.
She says, "Supe, I got some bad news
that you're not gonna wanna hear,
but you need to know this."
So she briefed me about a hate crime.
I hang up the phone,
and I'm thinking to myself,
"This isn't good."
There was already
a lot of tension in the city.
[protesters chant] No r*cist police!
We don't need
another high-profile incident like this.
[wind gusts]
I'm Rafer Weigel coming to you
from the polar vortex of Chicago,
where it is so cold that our crews
cannot even do a report outside.
[man 4] I was at City Hall
with every single press outlet in Chicago,
because they were having
a press conference
to announce how they were going to be
handling the second night
of freezing temperatures in Chicago.
A reporter from WGN
was sitting in front of me,
and he says a celebrity had been attacked
in a racially motivated incident.
I remember thinking,
"How did they get the story before me?"
I said, "Who's that?"
He said, "One of the lead actors
on the hit show Empire,"
which was shot in Chicago.
-[Colbert] Please welcome Jussie Smollett.
-[crowd cheering, whooping]
Things are going very well.
Congratulations.
-[Jussie] So far, so good.
-A hit TV show.
You just got your first record deal
with Columbia, right?
-Yeah.
-[crowd cheers]
Chicago does not have
much of a celebrity scene.
If you become a celebrity in Chicago,
you move to LA.
Considering the times,
considering that this was
a racially motivated incident
involving a g*y man and a celebrity,
I knew this was going to be huge.
[dramatic music rises, fades]
Breaking news, Empire actor
Jussie Smollett assaulted in Chicago,
and police investigating it
as a possible crime.
The TV is on, as it always was,
and I hear in the background,
"Breaking news,
Empire star Jussie Smollett
has been attacked."
And at that moment, I knew this was bigger
than I could really put my finger on.
Uh
I called my mother, and I told her,
and I certainly tried to downplay it,
I said, "Mommy, I was in a fight.
I'm okay. Everything's fine."
Uh
Then it just snowballed from there.
[presenter] Police don't have any suspects
or even a solid description of the men,
a reported crime
that has rattled Hollywood
and just about everyone else.
You could not turn on the TV,
you could not turn on the radio
without hearing someone
talk about the attack.
It literally was everywhere.
As his assistant,
you have no choice but to grow close
because you're with this person
every single day.
Jussie's bosses were calling him.
Lee Daniels, the creator of the show,
they were really, really close,
and he made a very touching post.
Jussie, you are my son.
You didn't deserve,
nor anybody deserves,
to have a noose put around your neck.
You don't put a noose
around someone's neck for any other reason
than they're Black.
Lynching is coming back, right?
I mean, that was the undertone.
It felt like a kind of threat
against anybody Black.
[crowd] Stand up, fight back!
To see Jussie attacked
had a significant impact on a lot of us.
We don't have a lot
of Black q*eer characters
that we can see on television,
and Empire was a pretty enormous show.
Aw, this is amazing.
[Jarrett] It was a very concerning moment.
Unfortunately, various statistics confirm
what most of us have observed,
that hate incidents
are increasing in the United States.
So many of us felt like,
"If it could happen to him,
it could happen to me."
[reporter] Stars like Viola Davis,
John Legend,
and Vivica Fox tweeting their support.
Former Vice President Joe Biden
weighing in, saying,
"h*m* and racism have no place
on our streets or in our hearts."
"We are with you, Jussie."
I've seen it uh, last night.
I think that's horrible.
Uh
It doesn't get worse,
as far as I'm concerned.
There was a moment
where I went on social media
and I felt like I was being eulogized.
I felt like I had died
and I was alive to see, uh
And what people were saying was so kind,
but it was too much for me.
It made me very uncomfortable.
It made me very
extremely embarrassed.
Um
It made me feel extremely emasculated.
Hold your head up, Jussie.
I'm with you. I'll be there in a minute.
It's just another f*cking day in America.
[indistinct irate shouting]
[Jarrett] This is 2019,
and it's a very charged time.
We were as polarized
as we had been in this country.
[man chants] Off our streets, commie scum!
Off our streets
Yeah, it was a pretty crazy time,
but it was just like,
who would wanna attack Jussie
of all people?
And then it was kinda like
just a slow aha moment
where it was like, "Wait."
[suspenseful music playing]
Just a week before the attack,
someone sent Jussie a threatening letter.
Like cut out from a magazine.
In the letter, it said,
"You will die, Black f*g."
Along with what it said,
there was a a stick figure of a man
with a noose around his neck
and a g*n pointing at him.
We all assumed
that it was probably a KKK member.
I feel that FOX handled it perfectly.
I had gotten threatening tweets
and threatening letters before.
It was what it was.
I'm a very outspoken person.
I care about Black Lives Matter
and and police brutality.
That's what I care about,
what I wanna talk about.
[April] Jussie was brought up
in a socially conscious household.
His mom was a part of the Black Panthers
up in Oakland.
So I think that is why he fights
for the things that he fights for.
I understand that I would get the vitriol
and the ignorance and the negativity
that comes with being that sort of voice.
I just didn't think
that it would come to my home.
We were looking at
what we describe as a heater case.
This is a city
where the American dream is built.
[Eddie] Rahm Emanuel
was the mayor of Chicago.
Kim Foxx was the state's attorney.
I came into office in 2016.
It was the bloodiest year
we saw in Chicago since 1999.
[Eddie] So, of course,
we had to keep them abreast.
But their edict was,
"Get this solved as quickly as you can."
[chuckles] "If you guys don't solve this,
you're gonna be highly criticized."
And whatever it took for us to resolve it
and bring these people to justice,
I was willing to do.
-[intriguing music playing]
-[distant siren wails]
[car doors open]
[Eddie] The preliminary police officers
go to where the attack actually occurred,
and they see a video camera above them.
The camera that may have
captured the attack.
So they pull the footage.
It's pointed in a different direction
and does not capture the actual attack.
I thought, "Okay, this is gonna be tough."
That that first day,
the detectives spent all that day
canvassing and looking for more cameras.
[Melissa] So detectives started
reviewing all the camera footage
in the immediate area
and they see two subjects.
[dramatic music playing]
Jussie said there were two offenders,
we see two subjects walking,
so, yeah, that was a positive lead.
We get a still photo,
and we put out a community alert
to notify the public, trying to identify
who these two figures were.
[reporter] Chicago Police have released
surveillance photos of the two men
they say could be
persons of interest in this.
Hard to tell, though, bundled up.
They still have not located, though,
video of the actual attack.
[Eddie] We go step by step,
looking at the video footage
where Jussie pointed they ran
right after the attack.
We see these guys running
to the next camera
and the next camera and the next camera
and eventually get into a cab.
We were able to follow the cab
all the way to Roscoe Village.
[Melissa] These two subjects were
dropped off on the north side of Chicago,
and they proceed
to walk through a residential area.
[dramatic music continues]
A lot of people have doorbell cameras now.
And after five blocks,
they lose sight of 'em.
[music abates]
[beeping]
It went cold.
They're like, poof, you know,
so now we don't know where they are.
Very frustrating.
At that point, the detectives said,
"We've lost 'em here. Let's go back."
[tape whirring]
[Eddie] The detectives now gather
the video in the downtown area
prior to Smollett coming out
of the apartment.
[computer mouse clicking]
[Melissa] They find two figures
being dropped off
in the street of our area at 1:22 a.m.,
before the attack.
So we contact the taxi company
and ascertained that the two subjects
changed transportation
from a rideshare to this taxi.
[dramatic music intensifies]
Why would you switch
from a rideshare to a taxi mid-trip?
I'm thinking that these guys
are going to great lengths
to cover their tracks.
So the detectives subpoena the records
to find out who these subjects are.
[music fades]
And they wait.
[April] Four days after he was attacked,
Jussie had a show in LA
scheduled at the Troubadour.
[Jussie] After everything that happened,
I remember sitting down with my agents,
maybe two days before the show,
and them saying,
"You should cancel the show."
And I remember being like,
"We cannot sit there
and not do this show."
[indistinct chatter]
I'm not fully healed yet,
but I'm going to.
-And
-[woman 1] Yes, you are.
-[woman 2] That's right.
-And, um
I'm gonna stand strong with y'all,
and I'm
[audience cheers]
The atmosphere was electric.
Like, it was just so many people there.
-[cheering continues]
-Now is the time! Be Blacker, be gayer!
-Do it right the f*ck now!
-[band playing outro music]
I love y'all.
[woman 3] The fact that
he was able to go through
something this horrible and traumatic,
the fact he still found
the strength in himself
to come and show love to his fans,
I think that says a lot
about who Jussie Smollett is.
After the show, everything was done.
[cameras clicking]
This is a blip, but we just had
a triumphant show, so we're good.
[car horn honks]
We just didn't know
what was coming our way.
[police sirens wailing]
To think that I had two white guys
attack a Black man in this city
was disgusting to me.
But some things kind of struck me
as a little odd.
[disquieting music playing]
We were going through
the polar vortex at the time,
and I'm thinking to myself,
"Who is out in the street
with with it being
cold as as sh*t out there?"
[Intriguing music playing]
We had the video of Jussie Smollett
when he came back into his building
after the crime had occurred.
So that's when we saw
a Subway sandwich bag in his hand
that was in pristine condition,
and I'm like, "Wait a minute."
Most victims of an as*ault like that,
they're trying to get
the heck out of Dodge,
because, let's face it,
who's to say these two guys
that assaulted him won't come back?
The last thing they're worried about
is grabbing a sandwich bag.
So that was a little odd to me.
Then there was the initial video of him
in his apartment with the noose.
I do. I just wanted y'all to see it.
[Eddie] He says to the officers,
"Yeah, this is the noose they used."
"I just wanted you all to see it."
And then he calmly takes it
from around his neck
and kind of rolls it up like it's a prop.
Now, look, my family
is from the Deep South in Alabama,
so I saw some things growing up.
I don't know of many Black people,
if there was a noose around their neck,
they're not gonna leave it on there.
They're gonna treat it
with disdain and disgust.
That was a little pause for concern.
Then when we asked Jussie for his phone,
he doesn't wanna give it to us.
You know, so of course that raised
a lot of suspicion on our part.
[Rafer] As a journalist, my job was to get
the full story on the Smollett case.
[phone line rings]
So I called the public information officer
at Chicago PD.
[phone line ringing]
The first line out of his mouth was,
"Yeah, it's a bunch of bullshit."
I said, "Is that on the record?"
He said, "No, no."
"That is not on the record."
I said, "Well, what can I
what can I tweet? What can I say?"
He goes, "Just say that Chicago Police
are taking this very seriously,
but that we're skeptical."
That was mind-blowing,
to get that kind of color on a case.
That's never happened
in my 15-year career, not for anything.
The fact that he went on the record
saying that they weren't buying his story
was like, "Wow."
So I tweeted it out.
[tense music playing]
The leaks just kept on coming
right after that.
Smollett not cooperating,
not releasing the phone records.
I remember getting a phone call saying
that they looked at the surveillance tape
and saw that he still was
carrying his sandwich
while the rope was around his neck.
They wanted me to get that out there.
Do you believe all the details
that you've heard so far about this?
I don't wanna say it's suspicious,
because you have to take somebody's word,
their their account, and but it is, um
[tuts] I don't wanna say
It seems sensational.
[reporter 1] Pressure is building
against the man who says he is the victim.
[reporter 2] Police say they have seen
no evidence of an as*ault
in hundreds of hours
of security video they've screened.
[reporter 3] All indications are
that something is amiss in this case.
It all started
when they wanted his phone records,
and Jussie was a little wary
about giving them
because he has so many people's,
like, personal numbers in his phone.
But they flipped that to, like,
"Oh, he's hiding something from us."
If everybody in the world
had to open up their text messages,
what would they find?
For me, I live a full life,
and I've made mistakes,
and to be quite honest,
the large thing that I did not want
to get out there was my drug use.
I didn't want that out there.
I had to explain
every single eccentricity of mine.
"Well, why would he be walking out
at 2:00 in the morning?"
'Cause I always did that.
Just like the other four people
that were at Subway that made it 24 hours.
"Why was he doing this?
Why was he doing that?"
Like the rope.
I was not sitting there for 35 minutes
with it around my neck.
We put it back on
because we wanted to show them
what was happening.
It was like playing whack-a-mole
with rumors, with lies.
Just, "Oh, that's a lie, that's a lie,"
but at a certain point, it's too many.
And you can't you can't do that.
You can't catch them all.
[telephone rings]
-[mouse clicks]
-[intriguing music playing]
[Melissa] After a few days,
the rideshare records come back,
which revealed
some interesting information.
[mouse clicking]
It reveals that there was one ride
in the area that night at that time.
Just one. In that vicinity, just one.
This had to be these suspects.
The rideshare was summonsed
by someone by the name of Ola Osundairo.
[mouse clicks]
We see that this is somebody
that lived in the Chicago area.
In fact, he lived just a block away
from where the detectives
lost the trail of the two suspects.
The chief of detectives called me
to let me know that they had
actually identified who these guys were.
And I'm like, "Beautiful."
[mouse clicks]
[Melissa] We looked at his social media.
The most striking thing
is that Jussie reports
that it was a male white
that attacked him,
and Ola is a male Black
of Nigerian descent,
which we found odd.
[mouse clicks]
Then we see that he has a brother, Bola,
an American of Nigerian descent,
who's also in very good physical shape.
Maybe Ola's brother, Bola,
is the other person in the video.
So if that's the case, it does not fit
with Jussie's account of what occurred.
[dramatic music playing]
We genuinely was looking
for two white guys,
because that's who he described to us.
Now it's really not looking good
in terms of the story being
exactly what he said it was.
Then I received news
that turned the whole case
in an entirely new direction.
Further investigation,
looking into Ola's social media,
reveals that the two brothers
were extras on the Empire series.
[tense, intriguing music playing]
They worked on the set of Empire.
"Do these guys know Jussie?"
"What what's going on here?"
When I saw they worked on the Empire set,
I'm like, "What the f*ck?"
And then detectives discovered
that the night after the incident,
Ola and Bola Osundairo
had flown to Nigeria.
So we sit on the information
and wait for these guys to return.
[distant police siren wails]
[reporter] Let's turn
to this Jussie Smollett incident,
because there's still a lot of questions
that haven't been answered
in terms of what really happened.
There were calls every day, all day.
So many people
were reaching out to Jussie,
wanting to do interviews,
but he was declining all of them.
He didn't want
to sit in front of a camera,
but FOX's PR team thought
that it would be the right thing to do
to go on Robin Roberts.
[indistinct chatter]
She has a huge platform because of,
you know, Good Morning America.
She is a woman of color,
and she is part of the LGBTQI community,
so she would be able
to understand his situation.
If that would
fix something
and have people stop with these things
Like, "Okay, so all I have to do is go on,
say what happened, and then I'm done?"
"Cool. Let's do it."
[April] Walking into
the interview recording,
Jussie knew what he wanted to say.
[light clacks, hums]
I'm pissed off.
Is it the the attackers?
It's the attackers,
but it's also the attacks.
Listen, if I tell the truth,
that's it, 'cause it's the truth.
How can you doubt that?
Like, how do you
how do you not believe that?
-What happened that night, Jussie?
-I see the, uh, attackers.
He said, "This is MAGA country, [bleep]."
Punches me right in the face.
We started tussling.
You know, it was very icy.
They ran off.
I want them to see that I fought back.
And I want a little g*y boy
[voice breaks] who might watch this
to see that I fought [bleep] back.
-Thank you, Jussie.
-Thank you. Thank you.
[plane engines whirs]
The detectives ascertained
that the Osundairo brothers
are gonna be returning from Nigeria.
[man] All right, you guys just follow me,
and we're just gonna go
right underneath this wing.
[Melissa] So they go to the airport.
They wait for them.
-[woman] It's up there, boys.
-[officer] We got it.
Where's them boys at?
[Eddie] I was in my office,
waiting on Chief Staples to call me
the moment that they touched down,
and we snatched 'em up
right off the airplane.
-Am I under arrest?
-Yes, sir, you are.
-I am?
-[officer] Yes, sir.
[handcuffs clacking]
[Melissa] And they take 'em into custody
and transport them
to the Area 1 Detective Division
for an interview.
[bell rings]
[officer 1] Sir, do you have
any identification?
Yeah.
-[officer 2] Break 'em down for us?
-[officer 3] Sure.
[Melissa] These two are our only leads.
This is what the video is pointing to,
and the subpoenas
and the rideshares and the taxis.
Everything is pointing to them
at this point.
So what's going on? Am I being arrested?
[officer 3] I don't know
what you're here for.
Put your hands on the wall one more time.
I already did it, but I gotta do it again.
We need some answers.
[intriguing music playing]
And do you wish
to talk to us at this time?
No.
No?
But Ola and Bola refused to speak.
-Do you wish to talk to me at this time?
-[Bola] Mm-mm.
-No?
-No?
No.
[Ola grunts]
[Eddie] I know she felt
the pressure from me
because I was feeling
the pressure from the mayor,
because he keeps calling me,
"Did they talk yet? Did they talk?"
And and, you know,
you can't force 'em to.
So there was a lot of
a lot of angst on our part.
And I know you said
you didn't wanna talk to us before
We're only allowed, by state law,
to hold persons of interest for 48 hours.
[ticking]
The police asked me
to come into the station.
And they said that they already had
somebody in custody,
and they showed me the pictures.
And I told them that
there is absolutely no way possible
that they did this.
I was friends with one brother.
He was also working as my trainer.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever
that I could think that they would do it.
I said, "What evidence do you have
to show me that the brothers
had anything to do with this?"
They wouldn't show me anything.
I flipped.
"For everything that I've shared
with you guys,
you're going to bring me this,
the exact opposite of what I saw?"
[intriguing music continues]
I saw a pale-skinned man.
I know what I saw.
I said I would not sign
a complaint against them.
I know that it wasn't them.
You guys are full of sh*t.
The brothers could be charged
with aggravated battery,
if if that's what Mr. Smollett
wanted to do, but he didn't.
[Melissa] So time is ticking,
and the pressure's on to get to the bottom
of what's going on,
but the brothers refused to speak.
And they eventually sought legal counsel.
[door squeaks]
[door chime tinkles]
[intriguing music continues]
[woman] I get a phone call
so early in the morning.
My baby was on my arm,
and I'm like,
"It's some international Nigerian number."
"I wonder who's calling me from there."
Six months earlier, I had called an Uber.
So the Uber driver
was this wonderful lady, Mrs. Osundairo,
and I could see
on her screensaver of her phone,
like, bodybuilding competitions.
And I'm like, "Oh my gosh.
You have a beautiful family."
"Mrs. Osundairo, if you ever need
an attorney, you call me."
"But if your children
ever need an attorney,
have them call me too
'cause they're so beautiful."
And so now this guy's saying that,
"We need an attorney."
"Police have a search warrant."
And he texted a photo of it saying,
you know, "Things to be seized."
Then it said, "Empire script,"
and that's when I was like, "Oh, man."
[chuckles] I said,
"Oh, I'll be right down."
When I first saw Bola, he was very quiet.
[somber music playing]
Was just kind of, like, stone-faced.
Ola was kind of down
but answering my questions.
At that point, they had still been
refusing to speak to police.
So that night, I go home,
and they aired
the Robin Roberts interview of Jussie.
I want them to see that I fought back.
And I remember watching this
as my toddler's eating
her Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
I'm thinking, "Oh my God.
This is this is madness."
I was talking to a friend, and I said,
"I just want them to find them."
[sniffles] And she said,
"Sweetie, they're not gonna find them."
That just made me so angry, because
"So I'm just gonna be
left here with this?"
[Eddie] At the airing of the interview,
I remember thinking to myself,
"I don't believe this guy.
He just doesn't have a clue."
I downloaded it to my phone
and then went to the station.
I'm sorry, Chicago Police. Sorry.
No phones in the jail. Sorry.
But I had to show them this.
And I said, "Hey, good morning, guys."
"These are the headlines. It's this hour."
"And also, by the way, Jussie gave,
like, an exclusive all-interview
to Robin Roberts."
The police have gone through
a lot of video,
and they were able to capture an image
of two people of interest.
Do you believe that
they could possibly be the attackers?
-I do.
-Why do you feel they could possibly be?
[Jussie] 'Cause I was there.
I don't have any doubt in my mind
that that's them.
He inadvertently identified the two guys
to the whole country.
And we knew it was the Osundairo brothers.
I played it for them,
and Ola's reaction to this was like,
"How could he?"
And then Bola's reaction to this was like,
"Oh my God. What has he done?"
I remember asking both of them,
"What do you guys wanna do?"
And they're like, "All right, Gloria,
we're ready to do this."
"We're ready to talk to the police."
-[officer 1] Sir?
-[Bola] Yeah.
[officer 1] Come on.
We're ready to take you upstairs.
[officer 2] Okay.
We're gonna make a right.
[suspenseful music intensifying]
[dramatic sting]
[music abates]
[Ola] We didn't think
that it would get this big.
But once we knew
that he was running with it,
we started cooperating with the police.
I'm an actor. I also am a fitness coach.
We grew up in Chicago.
Our parents came here from Nigeria.
[Bola] I box. I model.
I am just an all-around great human being.
That's my job.
I started as an extra on Empire in 2015.
[Bola] Ola worked on Empire before me,
but I became friends with Jussie first.
[intriguing music playing]
I had known Jussie
for about a year and a half.
It was invigorating. Like I was important.
I'm friends with this star.
I'm not just an extra.
[skipping rope thumping rapidly]
I was at the gym,
and I received a text from Jussie.
He asked me,
"Can I ask you something on the low?"
He has asked me to get weed
through text before,
so I was wondering
what could it have been.
So, eventually, I Ubered over
to where they sh**t Empire at.
Jussie pulled up in his car.
I get in the car.
I'm sitting in the passenger seat.
So he started telling me
about a letter that he received
and how the studio, FOX,
wasn't taking it seriously.
He seemed very distraught about it,
upset about it.
And that's when he told me
[music fades]
"I want you to beat me up."
I literally
stopped in my tracks.
I didn't quite understand what he meant.
So I was just there, dumbfounded,
like, "Damn, this dude
must be tweaking or crazy."
"Or maybe it's the weed."
'Cause I done been around weed smokers,
and they be tripping sometimes, you know?
So then Jussie told me
that we needed another person.
I'm heading to grab the mail
from the mailbox,
and I see a black Mercedes pull up,
and Bola sticks his head out
and tells me to hop in.
Jussie was like, "All right, I need you
and your brother to beat me up."
And I'm like
I'm scratching my head, like, "Okay."
I never been asked
to do something like this before.
He was telling us,
"This is just a thing
that's done in Hollywood."
He was gonna take the footage
that was caught on the camera
by his building
and put it on social media.
I believe he wanted to be the poster boy
of activism for Black people,
for g*y people,
or for marginalized people.
[Ola] I thought it was crazy.
But at the same time,
I'm like, "It's Hollywood."
"So I don't know. I'm I'm a baby in it."
"So this is what they do.
This is how it goes."
[Bola] I was like, "If we do this for him,
he's gonna help us out. "
"It's crazy, but let's do it."
[music fades]
He gave us a check of $3,500.
In my mind, I'm like,
"This is another day on the job."
And that's exactly how we took it.
[soft, ethereal music playing]
[muffled thumping]
[Eddie] We were trying to track down
the perpetrators of a hate crime.
We wanted to give Jussie Smollett
his justice.
But it was all theatrics.
[stage light clacks]
[distant siren wails]
And now the brothers had given us
enough evidence to prove
that he was not telling the truth.
[pulsing electronic music building]
[music fades]
I was like, "We got this dude now."
[suspenseful music playing]
So we contact Jussie's team.
They said that they didn't know
where he was.
[sighs]
I've dealt with celebrities.
Their team knows where they are.
[suspenseful music continues]
[woman] We got the call directly
from the TV executives at FOX.
We've represented some high-profile
and notorious people.
Andrew Tate.
We've represented Chris Brown,
Mike Tyson, Michael Jackson.
It's a long list.
Jussie was still being treated
as the victim,
but the story,
the narrative out there was shifting.
[Jussie] The police were
setting up a narrative
that I am no longer
going with the investigation,
cooperating with the investigation.
You would expect the victim
to cooperate fully
and willingly in such a high-profile case,
and that's just not happening.
So we spent a couple of days
talking about the case,
and the Chicago Police Department
was not pleased.
[music intensifies]
[Eddie] They kept hiding him from us.
So I finally said,
"Okay, I'll tell you what."
[smacks lips] "Tell them,
if we don't find this guy by tomorrow,
I'm going to send
our fugitive apprehension team
to actually arrest him."
[telephone rings]
[Tina] The Chicago Police Department
wanted him to turn himself in
by 5:00 in the morning that next day.
And so it was kind of frantic.
[telephone rings]
Now, all of a sudden,
he was like a full-on suspect.
[Tina] So as opposed to them
going out and arresting him,
we wanted to turn him in.
-[ringing continues]
-[music fades]
Turn myself in where? [chuckles]
What exactly are they saying I have to do?
[reporter 1] Three weeks ago,
Jussie Smollett appeared to be
the victim of a hate crime,
but his face is now in the police mugshot,
accused of making the whole thing up.
[camera shutters clicking]
[Eddie] Good morning, everyone.
I come to you
not only as the superintendent
of the Chicago Police Department
but also as a Black man
who spent his entire life
living in the city of Chicago.
Empire actor Jussie Smollett
took advantage of the pain and anger
of racism to promote his career.
Eddie Johnson came out swinging
in that press conference.
He even discussed possible motive.
We were we were shocked.
Smollett attempted to gain attention
by sending a false letter
that relied on racial, h*m*,
and political language.
[somber music playing]
When that didn't work,
Smollett concocted a story
about being attacked.
And why? Because he was dissatisfied
with his salary.
All this time and effort spent on this,
we were completely frustrated.
I mean, it it's horrible.
Why why would you do this?
I mean, the guy was making
more per episode
than most people make in a year.
To stage a hate crime of that nature,
when he knew, as a celebrity,
it would get a lot of attention,
is just despicable.
The evidence was just overwhelming.
[reporter 2] Stunning new
surveillance video has surfaced,
reportedly showing
two brothers at the center of the case
buying what is believed to be a red hat
and ski masks the day before the attack.
And that's when the public
totally turned on Jussie.
I think the saddest part about this
is that he has chosen, if true,
uh, to scapegoat Black q*eer folk,
who often are in the crosshairs
of violence.
Why in the f*ck
would a grown-a*s human being
lie about some sh*t like this
when people are really getting attacked?
This has been
the craziest Black History Month.
That third-rate actor
[audience groans, jeers]
in Chicago
[audience boos]
went out,
and he said,
"I was beaten up by MAGA country."
Can you believe it?
If he really did do this
to manifest it for attention,
then it is a heinous thing to do,
and he has to pay the price.
But he has never--
And if he didn't,
then he's owed an apology,
because he's getting dragged through this.
[music fades]
My personal reaction was
I was not yet ready
to draw any conclusions,
because I've seen that Chicago Police
has a century-long history, right,
if not more, of lying to the public.
[reporter 3] Tonight,
the Chicago Police Department
again under scrutiny.
[man 1] He was framed
by two Chicago police officers.
They manufactured a case against him.
[reporter 4] The Justice Department
is expected to announce
a civil rights investigation
into the Chicago Police Department.
For me, it became about,
"Who can you believe?"
It wasn't unbelievable to hear
that something like this had happened
to a person of color,
a q*eer person of color.
If he's saying to the world,
"This is what happened,"
I'm much more inclined to believe him
than I am the Chicago Police Department.
Why aren't they bringing charges
against the the two brothers?
[reporter 5] So how does it go
from potential suspects
to being under arrest to being freed?
I mean, how does that happen?
Good attorney work.
Good police work.
Why would Jussie hire two Nigerian guys
to do an attack that he was gonna say
were perpetrated by white guys
if it was gonna be caught on tape?
It doesn't make any sense.
[reporter 6] Any comment, Jussie?
[reporter 7] Do you have anything to say
to the Black LGBTQ community?
[reporters clamor]
[Tina] I think it's important to ask,
"What if he didn't do this?"
"What if he is actually innocent?"
Somebody that I was talking to,
they said, like, you know,
"Police in Chicago are r*cist,
so they might probably
trying to frame him."
[foreboding music drones]
[Jussie] What exactly is happening?
This is not real.
This cannot be happening.
Eddie Johnson said things
that are factually untrue.
That I lied
because I was dissatisfied
with my pay on Empire.
So let me just break that down.
My relationship with FOX was very good.
I was making great money as an actor,
was also now making great money
as a director.
The text message that said,
"May need your help on the low"
[message chimes]
that was a text to my friend,
Abel Osundairo
who was also, at that point,
working as my trainer.
[breathes deeply]
[Jussie] That was for an herbal steroid.
I'm embarrassed to say,
but for an herbal steroid
that was ill*gal here in the US
that could be gotten in Nigeria,
and it was to lose belly fat.
I wrote a check to my trainer
for a five-week period,
which was the time
that he was supposed to be working.
It's a business check.
That's what it was for.
I was defending myself against bullshit.
[reporter 1] Until this morning,
Smollett had a lot of support,
like that of the show's co-creator,
Lee Daniels.
Today, he was written out of the show.
In a joint statement,
the top brass of Empire said,
"To avoid further disruption on set,
we have decided
to remove the role of Jamal
from the final two episodes
of the season."
[man] Back up!
[reporter 2] After posting bail Thursday,
Smollett headed to the set of Empire,
where he reportedly apologized
to the cast and crew
and denied any wrongdoing.
[Tina] All of this was such overkill.
I mean, the charge
is filing a false police report,
so we had these discussions
with the prosecutor's office,
which was Kim Foxx's office,
of how to resolve this case.
Kim Foxx is known
as a "progressive prosecutor."
In other words, someone who said,
"I believe that we should be
prosecuting fewer people, not more."
My lawyer then comes to me.
She says,
"They're offering
that if you forfeit your bond
for $10,000,
and we can say
and we can show them
that you are a good citizen,
they will drop this,
and they will let this go."
"If this continues,
this will go on for at least two years."
"Your career will stall,
and people will forget about you."
Those are the exact words that she said.
And it was because of that
that I made the decision and said,
"Okay, we'll do it."
Shock and fury
after Cook County prosecutors
drop all charges
against actor Jussie Smollett.
Mr. Smollett was afforded
the same opportunity
that anyone in Cook County
who had a non-violent offense
would be able to get.
I can't say that I was happy
when the charges were dropped.
I feel like the charges should have
never been brought to begin with.
I have been truthful and consistent
on every single level since day one.
I would not be my mother's son
if I was capable of one drop
of what I have been accused of.
I'm like, "What the f*ck is going on?"
It completely blindsided me. Completely.
Even though Kim Foxx dropped the charges,
it did not exonerate Jussie Smollett.
The sentiment was
is that he was still guilty.
They just didn't wanna
put him behind bars.
But he came out rallying,
still playing the victim card.
Make no mistakes, I will always
continue to fight for the justice,
equality, and betterment
of marginalized people everywhere.
So again, thank you for all the support,
thank you for the faith,
and thank you to God.
Bless y'all. Thank you very much.
To now double down
and rub it in the face of Chicago,
saying he had been vindicated,
that really pissed me off.
When I let the mayor know,
he's just smoking.
You could see the smoke
coming out of his ears.
This is an unbelievable
not just whitewash of justice,
this is a person now
who's been let off scot-free
with no sense of accountability
of the moral and ethical wrong
of his actions.
[protesters chant] Foxx must go!
Foxx must go!
[Eddie] He's a celebrity.
He's getting preferential treatment.
It ticked off the police,
and it ticked off the judicial system.
[Gloria] I don't know what's going on
in the state's attorney's office,
but something
does not pass the smell test here.
[protesters] Foxx must go!
[Rafer] Some people felt
that Kim Foxx did not do her job.
So a special prosecutor was brought in
to take care of the case.
Now to breaking news
in the case of Jussie Smollett,
a new indictment against the actor.
[reporter 1] He's once again
facing charges in Chicago
for claiming he was the victim
of a hate crime attack.
They also say charges
should have never been dropped
after he was originally accused
of lying to investigators.
[solemn music playing]
It was The Twilight Zone.
It's the only way that I can describe it.
Jussie and I were kind of in disbelief.
There had been an agreement
with Kim Foxx's office
that the prosecution
would not proceed on this case.
It was a bargained-for exchange
because he had forfeited his $10,000 bond,
and you can't renege on your deal.
This is not done.
[reporter 2] Former Empire actor
Jussie Smollett
will finally see his day in court.
[tense, suspenseful music playing]
When the trial happened in 2021,
there was a great deal of hysteria.
This was Chicago's OJ trial.
Everybody paid attention to it.
Everybody was following it.
Everybody wanted to see
what was going to happen.
[reporter 3] This case
captivated the country.
And now here we are
in the trial of Jussie Smollett.
I think we can see Jussie Smollett
in the group right now.
[Jussie] Come on, back up, y'all.
Back up. My mom's here.
Y'all, be respectful, please.
There's no way to necessarily
know for certain what to expect
when you're walking into a trial,
especially of this magnitude.
But as an adult, as a man,
you wanna prepare yourself.
Just mentally, you wanna prepare yourself.
I think there was so much
prejudicial pretrial publicity,
so by the time it was time for trial,
I think our firm were looking forward
to him having his day in court.
The Osundairo brothers and their attorney
were really playing to the media.
[cameras clicking]
To me, there were things
that felt like stunts.
[Bola] Amen.
Was it daunting for me
to go up against his lawyers?
Absolutely not,
because I'm never daunted
when I have a case.
[tense music continues]
We put into action
what we have been prepping on.
[reporter 4] Osundairo's testimony
is expected to take quite a while
and will likely be challenged extensively
by the defense.
When Abel got up on the stand, I was so
I just needed to know,
"What is this? What is this?"
And I really felt like
I just needed to, like, catch his eyes.
If he would look at me,
somehow I would be able
to understand a little bit,
something a little bit more.
And that never happened.
At that point, it was a show.
[suspenseful music playing]
[reporter 5] Osundairo was on the stand
for about four hours here.
He told the jury that Jussie Smollett
thought up the attack.
[reporter 4] Smollett told them
they would need to choose a location
for the fake attack and do a dry run.
[Gloria] I see some of the officers,
like, shaking hands with the brothers
as they're kinda
coming off the witness stand,
and that's when I felt like I had a case.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tina] The prosecution put on
a lot of surveillance footage
to show that the brothers were involved
in the attack, that they were there.
They tracked their motions.
But none of this
actually tied into Jussie.
The only connection to this being a hoax
was the fact that the brothers said,
"This is what Jussie asked us to do."
[reporter 6] Everybody's saying
you lied on the stand.
Did you lie on the stand?
[Tina] But what was most incredible was
that there was
a completely independent witness
on the night of the attack
who also saw the exact same thing
that Jussie saw.
[wind whistles]
[intriguing music playing]
He was working at the Sheraton nearby.
[elevator dings]
And his testimony was heard
during the trial.
In 2019, I was working
at the Sheraton Grand, Chicago.
It was polar vortex.
That's how I can remember it so well.
It was so cold outside.
I was doing my normal patrols.
I stepped outside the door.
I can hear feet steps.
I had my flashlight, so as I heard 'em,
I turned my flashlight up.
-A male was coming up fast.
-[dramatic music playing]
He had a mask on.
I couldn't see his full face.
I could just see he had the eye cut out.
So obviously, you could see his skin
right around the eyes.
[music builds]
[music abates]
From what I saw,
it was a Caucasian male, a white guy.
This man had said exactly what I said.
There was also a second witness.
[woman] I had the corner penthouse
with the balcony
in the same building as Mr. Smollett.
I said hello to him once in the elevator.
I wanna say 12:30, 12:45.
And I was going to take the boys, my dogs,
out to do their business
for the last time.
[dog barks]
I went out the door,
and there was a gentleman standing there.
[dogs pant]
You know, he may have been
waiting for someone.
It was a white man, maybe mid-30s,
and he had a beanie hat on.
Being a woman, being down there by myself,
I was kind of focused on him.
As I got closer,
I looked, and out of the back,
kind of sticking out
of the back of his jacket,
you could see a little bit of a rope,
maybe just a couple inches.
And I remember being focused on the rope.
You know, I passed him
going back into the, um, building,
and that was it.
[dog barks]
The next morning, the concierge,
her name was Diamond,
she said, "Jussie Smollett was beaten up
and lynched last night."
And so immediately,
you know, my senses went up.
And I said, "Diamond, I was down there."
"I could have seen the person."
"You know, I could have witnessed
the person that had done this."
That's where we saw
that every bit of information
that I had said had been corroborated.
And I have never spoken to
or met these people.
This is as clear as day.
I thought to myself then,
"This is it."
"This this is gonna exonerate me.
This is it."
"Everybody's gonna see this
and gonna report on this."
"And this is this is the moment."
"This is it. Y'all see this?
This is great."
The jury in the Jussie Smollett trial
went home around five o'clock
without reaching a verdict.
So that means
the earliest we'll have a conclusion
is tomorrow.
[April] I did not watch the trial.
I just needed a break.
Jussie just became
hyper-paranoid of everything.
So I pulled away.
You couldn't even have,
like, a normal conversation
or, like, go for a walk anymore,
because then it all became
a thing of, like,
"Is this person looking at me?
Is this person judging me?"
[brooding music playing]
I never had any doubt in my mind
if he did it or not,
not once, ever.
But it is just hard
to be around somebody like that,
who's always on
alert, high alert.
He always said, like,
"My job is dependent on if people like me,
you know, as an actor."
And
it's always in the back of his mind
if someone believes him or not.
[music fades]
[news theme music plays]
Tonight, breaking news
as we come on the air,
the verdict in the Jussie Smollett trial.
[reporter 1] At this point,
we're waiting to hear what it is.
[Rafer] After all the testimony
and all the proceedings,
the jurors took two days
to reach a verdict.
[suspenseful music playing]
[reporter 2] Oh, here we go.
They're coming out.
We have a producer in the courtroom
who is texting me right now
that Smollett is guilty
on the first five charges.
There's lying about a hate crime
because he's a Black g*y man.
There's lying about battery
because he was injured.
And then there's lying
about aggravated battery
because he said that his attackers
were wearing masks.
You are now a permanently convicted felon.
You're a charlatan
pretending to be a victim of a hate crime,
and that's shameful.
Your very name
has become an adverb for lying.
[Tina] It was very hard to predict
what the judge could do.
Let me tell you, Mr. Smollett,
I know that there is nothing
that I will do here today
that can come close to the damage
you've already done to your own life.
I'm sentencing you
to 30 months felony probation,
and the probation is gonna be
to this court.
You will pay restitution
to the city of Chicago
in the amount of $120,106.
You are fined $25,000,
which is the maximum fine.
And you will spend
the first 150 days of your sentence
in the Cook County Jail,
and that will start today,
right here, right now.
I was shocked
that he remanded him into custody.
It seemed crazy
that he would impose custodial time.
Your Honor, I respect you,
and I respect the jury,
but I did not do this.
I am innocent.
-I am not suicidal!
-[woman] Stop locking up our Black men!
[Jussie] I am not suicidal,
and I am innocent!
I could have said that I was guilty
a long time ago.
[reporter 3] A hundred and fifty days
in jail, beginning tonight.
The hammer of justice fell hard today
on Jussie Smollett.
I doubt many people expected the outburst
that we saw there at the end.
He seemed to be alluding
to the fact he thought
something could happen to him
in Cook County Jail.
Boy, what a way for an actor
to end the end of his sentencing.
[reporter 4] The jury in Chicago
has found actor Jussie Smollett
guilty of staging a h*m*
and r*cist attack on himself.
Two brothers testified that
[woman] This is a huge story.
Everybody watched
this spectacular fall from grace.
As I was watching it, for me,
the key question
at the heart of this was, "Why?"
Who would make up their own hate crime?
What a strange thing to do.
Because now,
Jussie is a huge international joke.
[audience laughs and applauds]
The g*y community started accusing
the African-American community
of being h*m*
for not supporting him.
What they didn't understand
is that we were supporting him
with our silence.
[audience laughs]
Because we understood
that this n*gga was clearly lying.
[audience laughs and applauds]
[audience fades]
[Jocqui] My brother does not deserve this.
I've watched my brother
go from being a complete victim,
which he still is.
He was attacked.
I saw my brother get locked up
for being attacked.
Do you know how crazy that is?
[Abigail] Jussie didn't have an agent
at that time,
so I decided to get in touch
with his brother and sister.
[waiting room instrumental music playing]
Well, I always remember that Zoom
because it didn't go very well.
[video call chime]
I came in with the attitude
of Jussie Smollett being guilty,
and they believed
that this had happened to Jussie for real,
that he was a victim,
and that he had suffered
a real hate crime.
That judge chastised him.
He chastised my brother.
He does not deserve this.
[Abigail] Of course
they're going to say he's innocent.
This is his brother and sister.
But I found them to be sincere,
and that lingered on with me quite a bit.
So I decided to look a little bit deeper.
I went beyond the headlines
and went beyond the clickbait,
and I found there was no hard proof
connecting the Osundairo brothers
to the crime.
There were no eyewitnesses
that identified the Osundairo brothers.
There was no forensics.
[keyboard keys clacking]
I came across a journalist
who was also researching
the Jussie Smollett case.
[gulls calling]
[woman] I'm an investigative journalist.
My dad grew up in Chicago.
[birds twittering]
The Black community in Chicago
has been speaking out
about being mistreated by the police
for many, many years,
and I think it's very important
that we don't just,
uh, jump to conclusions
because the police make a statement.
[disquieting music playing]
So I started to get my hands on
the police reports for Jussie's case.
Basically, 500 pages.
They had the officers' names
and their badge number.
[keyboard keys clacking]
So I looked into the 38 detectives
and supervisors
that were assigned to this case.
They had a combined
563 misconduct allegations
formally filed against them
by the citizens of Chicago
[mouse clicking]
ranging from, like,
criminal sexual misconduct
to sh**ting people and selling drugs.
And they were also
sued for misconduct 16 times,
with the city paying out those 16 times.
One of the first people
that shows up on the scene
was accused, in a formal complaint,
of h*m* hate speech
against a Black man.
[dramatic music playing]
I spent a lot of time
reading all these police reports.
I saw the two witnesses
who described to police
white men at the scene.
Anthony Moore,
the security guard at the Sheraton Hotel,
was interviewed by the police
several times,
and he always kept saying the same thing,
that the guy was a white guy.
And I started having questions.
[music abates]
"What happened to them?"
"How were they treated?"
"Why were these people ignored?"
[Anthony] After I gave
my statement to the police,
they called me, told me
when to come into the police station,
and they provided a lineup.
[muffled chatter]
They told me to pick the person
that I saw,
but they're all Black males
on the picture.
[dramatic music resumes]
So I told the detective,
"I can't pick no one
because the person I saw
was a white person."
The detective said, "I understand that,
but if you had to pick someone,
who would be the closest
to what you've seen?"
So it was a person I picked.
It obviously was
the most light-skinned person on there,
that wasn't even light-skinned, honestly.
I said, "I'm telling you now,
this is not the person that ran past
that I seen."
And he said, "No, no, that's fine."
[washing machine whirs]
What was my purpose
of giving you my story?
Because you're ignoring everything
I just said to fit what's going on,
whatever their narrative was.
-[whirring intensifies]
-[music intensifies]
[music abates]
But I saw what I saw.
[bird chatters]
[somber music playing]
[Chelli] The police reports
mentioned a video of Anthony Moore
just as the attackers are running by.
So I was then obviously, like,
very interested to see it for myself.
So I request this video from them.
When I got it,
it does show him walking to the door.
And it looks like it's gonna show him
shine his flashlight
in the first guy's face.
But just as Anthony Moore
opens the door to go outside,
the video jumps ahead.
[tense, intriguing music playing]
The video seems to jolt,
but when I look at the clock,
it jumps ten seconds.
[dramatic sting]
And that is a vital ten seconds
that we lose.
[Chelli] It erases the guy
who Anthony Moore says is white
and wearing a black face mask
running by him.
And it misses Moore
shining the flashlight in his face.
[music abates]
So I wrote to them immediately and said,
"Please send me those ten seconds."
[music continues]
But they didn't give it to me.
Why did they take it out,
you know, if they did?
Because it seems like
maybe you could see that the guy was white
right on the footage
if you could see him
shining the flashlight.
Like, it's clear enough
that you might have been able to see
that the guy was a white guy.
So this, to me, was like
the biggest red flag possible, you know?
Because I know Chicago Police's history
of tampering with evidence,
hiding video evidence,
like they allegedly did
in the Laquan McDonald case.
[somber music playing]
[reporter 1] Laquan McDonald
was shot 16 times
by Officer Jason Van d*ke
in a case that has taken
more than a year to investigate.
At first, the sh**ting happened
with basically little to no fanfare.
The narrative was that he had been shot
after an altercation.
[siren wailing]
And then the video of the sh**ting
gets out.
[reporter 1] The video shows
Officer Jason Van d*ke on the left
firing just six seconds
after leaving his cruiser.
Most of the shots hit Laquan McDonald
when he was already on the ground.
[Josie] Then it became clear that this boy
had been shot 16 times in cold blood.
There was a real kind of collusion, right,
to keep the public from knowing.
These defendants lied about what occurred
during a police-involved sh**ting
Cover-up!
in order to prevent
independent criminal investigators
from learning the truth.
They have released surveillance tape
from a Burger King
with an 80-minute gap
that includes the time of the sh**ting.
[reporter 2] The Burger King
district manager alleges
officers deleted video
from cameras at the restaurant.
When I saw
that the Chicago Police have form
when it comes down to missing evidence
it made my jaw drop.
[tense, intriguing music playing]
[Chelli] Now I wanted to find
a clear image of the suspects,
so I request every video of them by filing
Freedom of Information Act requests.
In most of the videos,
the suspects just look like silhouettes.
You can't see anything,
or they're just corrupted
and it's pixelated.
But then, in one video, it switches
to a color scene, and it's bright and lit.
These two guys walk on the scene.
And the first guy is unmasked.
[tape whirs]
You actually get the full-frontal face,
in color, of one of the suspects
that appears to be white.
I thought, "What's going on?"
[disquieting music playing]
This doesn't look like the brothers.
This is more the way that Jussie Smollett
described his two attackers.
That's when I started to think,
"Could it be possible that Jussie Smollett
is actually innocent?"
An Illinois Supreme Court has agreed
to hear an appeal from Jussie Smollett.
We feel 100% confident
that this case will be, uh, won on appeal.
We remain 100% confident
in our client's innocence.
We've seen this happen in other cases
where convictions have been reversed
on this basis.
There were so many things done
that were just contrary
to what the law allows
and what happens in your typical case.
[Abigail] The investigation
was very strange.
Why would police
not listen to these witnesses?
Why would they go
with this very different narrative?
Sixteen shots!
Sixteen shots and a cover-up!
Sixteen shots and a cover-up!
[Josie] The Laquan McDonald case
was a real stain
on the Chicago Police Department's
reputation.
[reporter 1] Hundreds of angry protesters
are taking to the streets of Chicago.
[Josie] It was a very emotional
and galvanizing moment
for the general public,
who recognized that a police department
that is willing to cover up
the k*lling of a child
needed to be overhauled.
[protesters chant] Sixteen shots!
Sixteen shots! Sixteen
[Chelli] Just two weeks
before Jussie's case,
the police officer
who m*rder*d Laquan McDonald
was sentenced
to six and a half years in prison.
They falsified those police reports.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist
to understand what they did was ill*gal.
[protesters chant indistinctly]
[Josie] Chicago Police wanted
some good attention.
They wanted to be seen
like the trustworthy, upstanding police.
And they wanted a win.
[cameras clicking]
[Chelli] Suddenly, with Jussie's case,
they just became the heroes of the story.
The detective work
that we saw in this case
is indicative of the work
that our detectives do
every day in this city.
[disquieting music playing]
-[handcuffs clack]
-[cell door slam]
[Chelli] When the police
first arrested the brothers,
they refused to make any statements.
They were put in several lineups
with key witnesses, taxi drivers,
the guard at the Sheraton,
and not once
were they picked out of the lineup.
There were also no forensics
that placed the Osundairo brothers
at the scene.
Two people's DNA were found on the noose,
but neither belonged to the brothers.
Which means,
for the police hoax narrative to work,
the importance of the confession
of the Osundairo brothers
is absolutely critical.
[Chelli] Interestingly,
the police reports showed
that the first day
the brothers were in custody,
more than a dozen police officers started
searching their house with a warrant.
-[crashing]
-[battering ram clanging]
[dramatic music playing]
[dog barking]
[officer] Put the dogs away.
[dog barking]
Put them in the bathroom right now.
We don't wanna sh**t 'em.
[Chelli] They found several g*ns,
as*ault r*fles,
several boxes of ammunition,
a 9mm.
This was like kind of a cache
of dangerous g*ns.
Now, this is where it's important
to distinguish Ola from Abel,
because Ola is a convicted felon.
In 2011, he was involved
in an attempted m*rder,
and that was pled down
to aggravated battery.
And he is not allowed to possess firearms.
Ola now could potentially be facing
the prospect of going back to prison.
This gives a massive advantage
to the Chicago Police Department.
They have huge leverage
over Ola Osundairo.
What happened in that interrogation room
became key.
[sirens wail]
The Chicago Police Department
and the Osundairo brothers
have all said there was no deal made.
But footage came across my desk
that I wasn't meant to see.
And it's certainly footage
that you're not meant to see.
And it includes
a confidential conversation
between Ola Osundairo and his lawyer,
Gloria Schmidt.
-Expunged is like expunged.
-[man] Like it never happened.
They toss it
like it never happened, right.
When it's sealed,
only the police have access to it.
[man] Right.
Gloria Schmidt is outlining for Ola
the difference between
having your record expunged or sealed.
And Ola is an aspiring actor.
A person from the public,
like a publicist,
an agent, a movie director,
they can't find anything that's sealed.
-That's "sealed"?
-Right.
But he's got a felony on his record.
And to my eyes,
that's when the brothers broker a deal.
How did how did my brother seem?
Conflicted as hell.
[man] All right.
The brothers brokered a deal
to get themselves off the hook.
[detective] So just to reiterate now,
we didn't make you any promises, right?
[Bola laughing]
And they lied when they said
that they were at the scene.
All the evidence from the scene
shows that there were white men there.
The brothers were not there.
[disquieting music drones]
[newscaster] Let's get a check
of your 7:30 headlines.
Actor Jussie Smollett
was released from jail last night
after serving just six nights
of a 150-day sentence.
An appeals court in Chicago
granted a motion
that Smollett be released on bond
while he appeals his conviction.
[Jussie] I'm supposed to be happy
because they let me out of jail
after six and a half days.
I'm supposed to be happy about that.
I'm supposed to be grateful for that. Why?
To whom?
[indistinct chatter]
[Jussie] I cannot stand the brothers
for what they did,
for how they've allowed themselves
to benefit.
I wanted to bring in
some professional hoaxers.
Joining me now, Ola and Bola Osundairo.
I threw the first punch,
made it look like he fought back,
and then he walked away
with the Subway sandwich.
[interviewer] Man.
And if anybody says anything
about my jacket,
I have two guys I can hire
to beat them up.
[newscaster] That's right.
[Jussie] But with that said,
I see that, from the beginning,
they were victims in this.
[Chelli] The public don't wanna be lied to
by corrupt authority figures.
They deserve to know all the information
and make an informed decision.
[man over radio] We're pleased
to have with us today
independent investigative reporter
Chelli Stanley.
[Chelli] The police searched their home,
and what they said they found
was a cache of arms,
including tactical weapons,
a r*fle, shotgun, a GL*CK 45.
The brothers were being
kind of coaxed into taking a deal.
"Independent investigative reporter,"
I think "Chelli" something,
inferred
that we'd pushed those brothers
into a position to where they they lied.
It just f*cking just kills me
when people just throw
this kind of sh*t out there.
I have no
What kind of bizarro world
are they living in?
The police don't have the authority
to seal somebody's record.
Ola's record is not sealed or expunged.
You can still find it. It's ridiculous.
There was no deal with the police.
You don't need an immunity deal
when you're telling the truth.
-[detective] Where would I be facing
-Then, "What did you say to me?"
-I just swung off him like that.
-So you used that hand off this side?
Yeah, off this side, and then
I was conflicted.
I didn't wanna go expose him.
I wanted him to be a man and come out
and say what happened himself.
[Melissa] You can read
police investigations,
you can FOIA the records,
but you gotta stick with
the facts in the file.
They're just creating a distraction.
"Look at this and look at this."
But if it walks like a duck
and it quacks like a duck,
it's a freaking duck.
Some people will never trust
the Chicago Police Department.
And I'm not saying
they don't have valid reason.
Are there still r*cist cops in CPD?
Sure there are.
So it's easy for people to say,
"Aha! It's the Chicago Police Department."
"They are not telling the truth."
It's just insulting.
[Abigail] There's one thing
you need to know
about Superintendent Eddie Johnson.
He was later fired for misconduct.
[reporter 1] Chicago's top cop
out of a job.
Fired just days
before he was set to retire.
[man chattering]
[reporter 1] The new report,
which included video evidence,
found Johnson lied
after an incident in October
when officers found him
in a parked police vehicle,
asleep at the wheel.
[officer] Sir?
[reporter 2] Chicago's top cop says
he was having a medical episode.
[reporter 1] But surveillance footage
shows him drinking, quote,
"For a few hours prior to the incident."
[reporter 3] Can you say
exactly how he lied to you?
[Lori clears throat]
Well, a lie is a lie.
I have no problem with saying,
1,000%, they are liars,
because
they made it up.
Every single bit of it.
For him to keep doubling down,
professing his innocence,
despite the mountain of evidence
that's to the contrary,
makes me think
he's just a very narcissistic
and troubled young man.
-[somber music playing]
-[ice cracking]
[Abigail] Just seeing all the evidence
the police put together
[keyboard clacks]
I became obsessed
about this piece of footage.
That's definitely not
the Osundairo brothers,
and it's right up there
for everyone to see.
And nobody saw it
because they've been told
over and over again,
"It was the Osundairo brothers."
White is Black.
[producer] Press play
and just say what you see.
I see a video of an orange cab.
Two subjects walk by.
The two subjects are
appear to be male Black.
[tense, pensive music playing]
This isn't who they said it was.
You can see that he's white.
[producer] Just flip it down
and it should be there.
Okay.
There's no doubt in my mind
these are the brothers.
I don't see two white guys on here.
As America is getting
increasingly divided,
people sort through information
that agrees with what they already think,
and the truth is
whatever you kind of want it to be.
[music continues]
[Bola] Yeah, that's a video of Ola and I.
Of the first person crossing?
Oh my gosh. [laughs]
It looks like a white person.
[producer] Just say what you see.
[Anthony] I see a man walking past a cab.
I see another man walking past a cab.
African American Black males.
I don't recognize who that is.
It looks like a white man.
-No, wait.
-[music abates]
An expl*sive case combining politics,
identity, and alleged lies
came to a dramatic conclusion today.
[tense, intriguing music playing]
They have said,
"You cannot go after him again,
because the prosecutors in this case
made a deal."
He had forfeited his $10,000 bond,
so you can't re-prosecute.
[newscaster] The special prosecutor says
today's decision, quote,
"Does not clear Jussie Smollett's name.
He is not innocent."
So does he just get away with it,
or does this mean what he said was true?
[music fades]
At the end of the day,
it doesn't matter whether someone
likes me or doesn't like me.
It doesn't matter whether you like
the way I'm giving this interview.
It doesn't matter whether you like
the way I look right now or not.
It doesn't matter
whether you love my performances
or you can't stand them.
That's unimportant.
What is important is,
regardless of what you think about me,
flaws and all, flaws and greatness,
whatever you think,
joy or sorrow,
the fact is I didn't do that,
and that's all that matters.
[dramatic, intriguing music playing]
[applause]
[audience cheers loudly]
-[Jussie] Hey, everybody.
-[audience] Hey!
I am just beyond honored to be here.
When you see these images,
it depicts Hunter Biden.
FOX Nation is improperly using that
to commercially exploit Hunter.
I personally believe he was put up to it
by somebody in a political position.
We have all of this in our book
that we're actually releasing.
That we've already written,
called Bigger Than Jussie:
The Modern-day The Need
The Mod What is it?
The Disturbing Need
for a Modern-day Lynching.
[music continues]
I'm like, "Why don't you have Jussie,
I'll get the brothers,
have them go do
a Saturday Night Live skit?"
They would all have a good laugh,
and we could move on from this.
Bigger Than Jussie: The Modern Need
-What is it?
-[chuckles]
The Disturbing Need
for a Modern-day Lynching.
So we have a book coming out.
[dramatic, intriguing music continues]
[music fades]
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Truth About Jussie Smollett, The? (2025)
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