BREAKING NEWS – Chicago, Illinois – The only Black juror on the panel that convicted Jussie Smollett of lying to Chicago police said he couldn’t get past what the actor did not do after he claimed attackers looped a noose around his neck: Rip it off and keep it off.
If others saw the noose as Smollett’s clumsy effort to portray his attackers as racist, Andre Hope saw much more.
“As an African American person, I’m not putting that noose back on at all,” Andre Hope told WLS-TV. At trial, Smollett testified that after the attack in downtown Chicago in January 2019, he returned home and put the rope back around his neck so police who came to his apartment soon after could see it.
“That particular juror was obviously manipulated into focusing on the facts and the compelling evidence, instead of on my emotional testimony,” Smollett explained. “Rather it was hoax or not, should have been irrelevant in his eyes. I’m black and he’s black, and that’s all he should’ve needed to know to vote not guilty, while simultaneously complimenting me on my Oscar winning performance once I took the stand.”