Disgraced Smollett Exits the Stage

Judge James Linn’s dressing-down of convicted hoaxer Jussie Smollett was a cathartic release for everyone enduring his saga.

"You’re not the victim of a racist hate crime, you’re not the victim of a homophobic hate crime, you’re just a charlatan pretending to be the victim of a hate crime and that’s shameful especially," said the judge.

Yes. It was high time for someone to say something like that to his smug, masked face.

If Judge Linn had been excoriating just about anyone else, you would have expected some indication of humiliation or shame in response.

But c’mon this is Jussie Smollett we’re talking about.

The same Jussie Smollett who chided special prosecutor Dan Webb when he dared to quote the same N-word which Smollett himself had typed into his conspiratorial texts to the now-infamous Osundairo brothers (Abimbola and Olabinjo) on the day of his staged attack.

The same Jussie Smollett whose continuously defensive denials under oath constituted, as Judge Linn said, "hour upon hour upon hour of pure perjury."

Clearly, he has neither humility or shame.

During the seemingly endless sentencing hearing, Smollett’s body language tensed whenever Linn associated him with his now-proven hoax, as if he was physically rejecting any who dared to make such a connection, the findings of the jury notwithstanding.

Before Linn’s scolding, Smollett’s gaggle of highly-paid attorneys attempted to frame him just as he sees himself: a very important man of irreproachable character.

Everyone and his grandmother, literally, was called upon to take up Jussie’s banner. Yet, each made the hearing that much more cringe-worthy.

Smollett’s brother attacked the system. His grandmother chided the media.

Everyone sang from the same hymnal; this was just a minor infraction. A mere trifle. A bump in the road. The real issue wasn’t what Jussie did. It was racism. It was homophobia.

It was "the system." Surely, it wasn’t a premeditated plan designed to further Smollett’s career or to bring attention to himself at the expense of real victims of hate.

That would mean owning what he did. How absurd.

Smollett’s lawyers even recited from letters furnished by the really important people.

People whose opinions mattered. People unlike the jury. At one point, his attorneys prefaced letters from, get this, Oscar-nominated, primetime Emmy and Grammy Award winners, as if those credentials mattered in the halls of justice.

The elitist privilege oozed with each syllable.

But Smollett saved his best (or worst!) for his grand finale. After Judge Linn sentenced the actor to five months in jail, Smollett went full martyr on everyone, shouting, "I am innocent, and I am not suicidal. If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of Black Americans in this country for over 400 years, and the fears of the LGBTQ community."

And with that, a few more dramatic protestations, Smollett, fist in the air, was led off his stage of infamy by his jailers, confirming what Judge Linn had said about him moments before. "Your very name has become an adverb for lying and I cannot imagine what could be worse than that," said Judge Linn.

A fitting epitaph for an someone who is arrogant, self-absorbed and most notably — unrepentant.

Gene Berardelli is a street-smart trial attorney who, through his time as the Law Chair of the Republican Party in Brooklyn, New York, has developed a solid reputation as an election attorney successfully representing conservative candidates. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.