Chicago Police Department(CHICAGO) — A Chicago judge set Jesse Smollett’s bond at $100,000 on Thursday and ordered him to surrender his passport, hours after a Chicago Police Department press conference, where Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson blasted the Empire star, saying that Smollett’s alleged staging of a hoax attack was a “publicity stunt…to promote his career.”
Standing before Cook County Circuit Court Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke, Jr., Smollett appeared steadfast. He’s repeatedly insisted that the attack was real and that he is a victim.
When first assistant state attorney Risa Lanier told Lyke that the actor had picked up the two brothers who authorities say he hired to carry out the attack, and showed them the location of where he wanted it to take place, Smollett shook his head in disagreement.
When Lyke told Smollett that the allegations, if true, are “utterly outrageous,” the actor nodded his head in agreement — adn did so again when Lyke said the noose detail was the most despicable part of the alleged scheme.
The judge also ordered pre-trial monitoring of the actor, and ordered him to stay away from the two brothers with whom he’d allegedly conspired.
At the Thursday morning press conference, a visibly angry Johnson called out the actor for betraying his race and his city with such an incendiary false claim.
“Jussie Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career,” Johnson said. “I am left hanging my head asking ‘why?’ Why would anyone, especially an African-American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations?”
Johnson told reporters that Smollett staged the attack — after sending himself a threatening letter to Empire‘s studios — because he was “dissatisfied with his salary.”
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