The Nigerian brothers whom actor Jussie Smollett paid to help him hoax the nation have sued Smollett’s attorney for defamation.
The Osundairo brothers, Olabinjo (right) and Abimbola (left), claim that Smollett’s hotshot celebrity attorneys Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian defamed them by claiming the brothers actually attacked Smollett and committed a hate crime.
The two allege that Smollett masterminded the hate hoax and paid them to attack him in the wee hours of January 29 in downtown Chicago.
The Charges
The hate hoax sent leftists everywhere into a major meltdown that included blaming the attack on President Trump.
Cops quickly tracked down the brothers and assembled irrefutable evidence of Smollett’s guilt. They charged him with 16 felonies, but then dropped the case after Smollett agreed, they claimed, to community service and surrendering the $10,000 bond he posted after his arrest. City authorities sued Smollett for the cost of the probe, some $130,000.
In fingering Smollett, the 27-page lawsuit alleges that he “told Plaintiffs, in private, that he needed a favor from them: they were to help him stage a social media hoax and pretend to attack him. Mr. Smollett’s motivation was simple. He wanted his employer and the public to notice and appreciate him as a successful Black, openly gay actor. So, Mr. Smollett directed every aspect of the attack.”
But on February 20, 2019, after cops uncovered the despicable ruse, the brothers told a grand jury the truth, which led to the 16 felonies. Smollett pled not guilty and prosecutors dropped the charges.
Then, the lawsuit alleges, “Mr. Smollett’s attorneys, faced with an outraged public, did not retreat after their success. Instead they doubled down, not simply affirming that Mr. Smollett was a wholly innocent victim, but that (among other accusations) Plaintiffs unequivocally led a criminally homophobic, racist, and violent attack against Mr. Smollett.”
Even worse, the lawsuit, says, the lawyers knew the claims were false when they caused them to be “published broadly in Illinois by major news outlets such as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, and WGN Radio.” The lawsuit also accuses the lawyers of similarly smearing the brothers in “national media.”
Among attorney Glandian’s false claims, the lawsuit alleges, are that the brothers did indeed attack Smollett in a genuine hate crime and that they committed perjury, wore whiteface, and conspired to lie to police. Glandian also harmed their fitness business, the lawsuit alleges, and also falsely claimed that Smollett and Abimbola Osundairo “engaged, at least briefly, in homosexual acts together.”
Because homosexual acts are illegal in Nigeria, and 99 percent of Nigerians believe “homosexuality should not be tolerated,” the statement “endangers him and the lives of his Nigerian family.”
As for Geragos, he “repeatedly indicated that Plaintiffs conspired to criminally attack Mr. Smollett, and by doing so, implied Plaintiffs committed perjury before the February 20, 2019 grand jury and conspired to make false statements to Chicago Police.”
The lawsuit accuses Geragos of approving and joining Glandian’s false statements “to promote his law firm and his reputation.”
The brothers seek unspecified damages from Smollett’s attorneys.
“Shameful” Ploy
After they first uncovered the hoax, police alleged that Smollett, who appears on Fox’s Empire, was seeking a pay raise.
They suspect he sent threatening letters to himself, but when no one paid attention, he opted for more drastic measure.
Coworkers told TMZ.com that Smollett saw an Instagram post from Empire director Lee Daniels, who wrote about an attack on a homosexual relative. That, the coworkers told TMZ, gave Smollett the idea for his attack, which included bleach, a beating, a noose, and the requisite anti-black and anti-homosexual remarks, including “This is MAGA Country,” and “Aren’t you that Empire faggot, n****r!?”
When the coast-to-coast moral panic ensued, no one asked the simple question of what two white men were doing in downtown Chicago at 2 a.m. in near subzero temperatures, or whether two thugs from “MAGA Country” would even know who Smollett is. Most likely, most Trump supporters don’t watch the program.
Black leaders in Chicago, not least the police chief and the judge who set Smollett’s bail, were furious about the hoax.
Smollett’s trickery was “shameful,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said. “Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career. It’s shameful. It’s just despicable.”
The “most vile and despicable part of it, if it’s true, is the noose,” said Cook County Judge John F. Lyke, Jr. “That symbol conjures up such evil in this country’s history.”
Image Olabinjo (right) and Abimbola Osundairo: Screenshots from youtube videos
