The brothers allegedly paid by actor Jussie Smollett to fake a hate crime attack have finally released a statement on the matter.
Lawyers for Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo said the brothers “have tremendous regret over their involvement in this situation. They understand how it has impacted people across the nation, particularly minority communities and especially those who have been victims of hate crimes themselves.”
Related: Jussie Smollett’s mugshot gets memed
Smollett posted bail earlier this week after Chicago police charged him with a felony for filing a false police report. The star of the Fox show Empire initially claimed that unknown attackers had beaten him, doused him with bleach and tied a rope around his neck as part of a racist, homophobic hate crime. He further alleged that the attack was part of a coordinated effort to intimidate and bash him which also included sending threatening letters to the Empire offices.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The backlash against Smollett has grown since a number of irregularities in his account of the attack have attracted questions about his story, and since the Osundario brothers provided evidence to police that Smollett paid them to stage the attack. Fox has dropped Smollett from the remaining episodes of Empire this season, as rumors about that the show’s producers would like to recast Smollett’s role.
GayEGO
Smollet made a grave mistake, was he on drugs and unable to think?
Brian
That won’t be his excuse until he is convicted. For some strange reason he decided to double down on the lie, even though it couldn’t be more obvious that the attack never happened.
boymikefl
Ya know, if someone pays you to commit a crime for them, you are just as guilty. Ever hear of murder for hire. If you kill you don’t walk, unless you’re DJT. Right? If someone pays you to kill someone and you do, what? You walk?
DennisBTR
That is not exactly how that works. The crime here is filing a false police report and other things related to filing the report.
Generally, it’s not illegal for you to pay someone to beat you up. If that were the case paid boxing trainers would be committing criminal offences every time they hit their client. Paying someone to beat someone else up would be a different matter. This was simply a publicity stunt, until the police report was filed.
Now I suppose if the DA could prove that the brothers knew that a police report was going to be filed, there might be some crime. However, absent a confession, recording or writing that would show that the brothers had criminal intent and knew that the police report was going to be filed, it would be almost be impossible for the DA to charge, must less convict, the brothers of a crime.
Of course, this all assumes that what has been written is true.
Brian
Unless the cops make a deal with you to not charge you in exchange for information. Happens all the time.
BGinBigD
No, honey, it’s called STUPID to fake a crime against yourself and to be paid for supposedly carrying it out. They all FOOS!!!
DCguy
So the brothers didn’t actually speak out, their lawyers released a generalized statement.
MISTERJETT
why is everyone taking what the brothers are saying as the gospel truth? i think everyone involved should take a polygraph and see what the results are. Jussie just might be telling the truth.
Brian
Why do you keep harping on this polygraph idea? It’s already been stated to you numerous times that polygraphs are not admissible as evidence in court because they are not completely reliable. Innocent people can fail them. Guilty people can beat them. It’s really not a very difficult concept to understand.
And Jussie stated definitively that his attackers were white, because he could see their white skin through the holes on their masks. Look at the picture at the top of the page and tell me how he could be telling the truth.
BGinBigD
Can you please pass the delusional drugs you’re on? Bless your heart if you remotely think Smollett is telling the truth about anythang! She a LIAR.
JamJewel
Brian: On the other hand, there have been several high profile incidents where polygraphs were used to validate cases, criminal and otherwise. Stormy’s poly was the basis for the #Drumpf payoff. Astronaut’s polys proved they weren’t lying about seeing alien craft. And let’s not forget that eerie YouTube video by the alien from the future.
Kangol
The Daily Mail (consider the source) reported the other day that the older Osundairo brother had expressed homophobic comments about gay men, including a fellow extra actor on the Empire set. Several straight and gay actors on set corroborated this. (The younger brother appears not to be homophobic or anti-gay at all, and was very close to Jussie Smollett.) Odd that that is only leaking now, and again, it is the Daily Mail, but this entire case has been strange since day one, and that includes the misstatements by Chicago’s Police Chief. I imagine we’ll eventually hear what really happened and why it went down as it did.
Bob LaBlah
I wonder if Chino Blacq took an Ancestry genealogy test would he be from the same area as the younger one. Things that make you go hmmmmm.
Kangol
The two guys are brothers and though they’re Americans (born here), their ancestry is Igbo, so that porn actor (I see you, Bob LaBlah) could conceivably be a distant relative to both since many African Americans do have ancestry from various parts of what’s now Nigeria, including the Igbo regions.
Heywood Jablowme
Make Nigeria Great Again!
QueerTruth
They were born and raised in the United States. They are American.
Where as you were born and raised in a barn.
mz.sam
Smollett and Trump now both have something in common…they doubled down on their lies. SAD!
CobraPowers
2+ years into a Russian collusion investigation and there’s ZERO evidence against Trump. Sorry to break it to you, but you’ll have to keep screaming at the sky for the next 6 years. He is doing a good job as a President, unlike Barry who wrecked the country.
CobraPowers
The bigger question is, are you Queerty and other far left media trying to indoctrinate the LGBT community into hating the President and hating America, sorry at all that you pushed this lie to divide and incite hatred?
JackKirby
Trump has done enough disservice to the LGBT community on his own for us to hate him, without any help from the media.