Yahoo TV

In February 2020, Smollett was charged in a six-count felony indictment with staging a phony hate crime, nearly a year after similar charges were abruptly dismissed by local prosecutors.

The six-count grand jury indictment accuses Smollett, 37, who is Black and openly gay, of making four separate false reports to Chicago Police Department officers related to his account that he was the victim of a hate crime.

The indictment specifically charges the actor with six counts of disorderly conduct.

Smollett has continued to insist that he was telling the truth when he reported that he was accosted on the street in January 2019 by two masked men, who he said threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of support for U.S. President Donald Trump.

The actor, who played a singer-songwriter on the Fox television "Empire" but was dropped from the show after the alleged attack, sued the city of Chicago in November 2019, accusing municipal officials of maliciously prosecuting him.