Jussie Smollett has officially appealed his conviction in his 2019 hate crime hoax, with his attorneys claiming in their filing that the actor’s 150-day jail sentence is “excessive.”
The Empire star served just six days of his sentence in a Chicago jail before a judge released him early last year pending the appeal. A jury had convicted the actor on five of the six charges related to his 2019 hoax in which he claimed to police that two Trump supporters violently assaulted him while he was venturing out in the middle of the night to buy a Subway sandwich.
It turned out Smollett, who is black and gay, staged the attack with the help of two Nigerian bodybuilding brothers in order to generate sympathetic media coverage and thus boost his Hollywood career.
On Wednesday, the actor’s lawyers filed the appeal in a Chicago court, seeking to overturn the verdict and prevent him from returning to the slammer.
The filing claims Smollett’s 150-day jail sentence is “excessive” and not “commensurate with the nature of the offense.” It also accuses the trial court of being inappropriately “dismissive” of the defense team’s efforts to establish “homophobia” as a central theme to the case.
The appeal claims Smollett was deprived of his Constitutional right to a jury of his peers when the trial court allowed he prosecution “to strike all but one African American juror and a gay juror.”
Smollett has maintained his innocence throughout the multi-year saga, even shouting in court after his conviction, “I am innocent and I am not suicidal.”
Since his conviction and release, the actor has sought to revive his career by directing a gay-themed indie movie and releasing a single in which he once again proclaimed his innocence.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
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