New police documents show that Chicago law enforcement kept two key witnesses at a hotel to avoid the media glare, and that the brothers who Jussie Smollett purportedly paid $3,500 for fitness and training typically charged nowhere near that amount — and one brother didn’t have any paying clients at all.
The Chicago Police Department responded to FOIA requests from multiple media outlets — with an unusually short turnaround time of one day — to release dozens of pages in police reports detailing the investigation that led to the 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct against the “Empire” actor. On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges against Smollett.
The documents, which were obtained by WNT-TV, the Chicago Sun, and several other media outlets, appear to reference conversations with the Osundairo brothers — the two men who claimed Smollett paid them to stage a hate crime against him on January 29. Although the pages are heavily redacted, and do not name the men specifically, it is clear from the un-redacted details that several passages describe conversations between investigators and one or both of the brothers.
The reports show that detectives put up the brothers for several days in February at the Chicago South Loop Hotel, reportedly to avoid media intrusion, the Chicago Sun Times reports. During detective interviews at the hotel, one or both brothers identified a bottle of hot sauce found near the scene of the purported attack as the bottle they had filled with bleach and poured on Smollett.
The brothers also shared their usual fees for fitness training, which appear to be quite a bit lower than the $3,500 Smollett’s attorneys have claimed the actor paid them for a fitness and nutrition training program. One of the brothers said he had no paying clients at all, but was training 11 people on a “trial” basis. The second said he only had two — including Smollett, and that he typically charges no more than $50 per hour.
Read the full police reports below:
CPD releases Jussie Smollet… by on Scribd
CPD releases Jussie Smollet… by on Scribd
[Feature image: AP Photo/Kamil Krzaczynski]
