Justice is being had

Full 60-page report on Jussie Smollett case released. Bottom line, prosecutors cannot rig a criminal case for any reason. Be it political, friendship, philosophical or something of value, all case rigging is wrong.

Special Prosecutor Dan Webb’s full 60-page report details how State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s staff handled the criminal charges against the ‘Empire’ star.

By Andy Grimm@agrimm34 Updated Dec 20, 2021, 11:18am CST

Special Prosecutor Dan Webb walks to the media pen after Judge Michael Toomin ordered the release of his report, which details how Kim Foxx and her staff handled the decision to drop charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, at the Cook County Juvenile Center in the Illinois Medical District, Monday morning, Dec. 16, 2021. The investigation was completed in August 2020 and Webb requested to unseal it now that Smollett was found guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct and acquitted on a sixth count. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times


A Cook County judge Monday allowed the release

of Special Prosecutor Dan Webb’s full 60-page report into his investigation of the procedural miscues and public misstatements about Jussie Smollett’s case made by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her top staff.

The “Empire” actor, 39, was found guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct and acquitted on a sixth count following a jury trial earlier this month.

Judge Michael Toomin, the veteran judge who in 2019 appointed Webb to probe the Smollett case, ruled that Webb’s full report on how the state’s attorney’s office and Chicago police handled the case could be unsealed.

“The need for disclosure, I think it can safely be said, is greater than the need for secrecy… at this time [the] trial has been concluded,” Toomin said during the brief hearing Monday.Flanked by family members, supporters, attorneys and bodyguards, former “Empire” star Jussie Smollett walks out of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse after he was found guilty on five counts of disorderly conduct but the jury acquitted him on one count, Thursday evening, Dec. 9, 2021. The 39-year-old actor and singer was charged with lying to Chicago police in 2019 when he claimed he was the victim of a racist and anti-gay attack near his Streeterville apartment. Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Monday’s hearing marked the third time Webb sought to make public his full report on the state’s attorney’s office handling of the decision to dismiss a 16-count indictment charging the “Empire” actor with staging a hate crime attack outside his Streeterville apartment in 2019.

In August 2020, Webb released a 12-page summary of his report, stating that Foxx and her top staff committed “substantial abuses of discretion” in dismissing the case.

However, the full report on the investigation has remained sealed. Toomin had previously expressed that grand jury information in the report should be shielded, but now with Smollett’s conviction, Webb argued Monday that the public deserved to see the full picture.

“You’re the one that included that it was important to appoint a special prosecutor to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system,” Webb told Toomin. “Now is the time to release the underlying evidence, so at least the public knows what was the actual evidence that supported the findings.”

Webb’s office released the report a few hours after Monday’s hearing.

Toomin appointed Webb six months after Foxx’s office dropped Smollett’s case, charging the veteran attorney with two tasks: Review the evidence and decide whether Smollett should be charged again for lying to police about the attack and probe Foxx’s office for any misconduct related to the dismissal of the case.

Dan Webb talks to reporters Monday after a Cook County judge ordered the release of Webb’s full report into his investigation of the procedural miscues and public misstatements about Jussie Smollett’s case made by State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her top staff. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Months after announcing a new indictment against Smollett, Webb’s team completed its report. Toomin ruled the full findings would remain under seal.

Foxx was campaigning for a second term as state’s attorney when Webb first sought to release the report last year.

Foxx’s political mentor, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, meanwhile actively campaigned against Toomin, who was facing a retention vote to remain on the bench as chief judge of Cook County’s Juvenile Court. Preckwinkle said her push to get Toomin off the bench was based on his years-long refusal to adopt reforms to the juvenile court that were endorsed by child advocates, not as retribution for installing Webb to investigate Foxx.

Both Toomin and Foxx were reelected.

In his summary, Webb said he found no criminal conduct behind the unorthodox decision to drop charges against Smollett, with the actor forfeiting only his $10,000 bond and making no admission of guilt.

But Webb did say that Foxx and her top deputies had notable procedural errors behind the scenes, and false statements to the public, including the assertion that Smollett was treated much the same as defendants in deferred prosecution programs offered by the courts, and that the evidence against the actor was weak.

During some eight hours on the witness stand during his trial, Smollett maintained he was not involved in planning the attack, which Webb alleged was a publicity stunt the actor plotted because he was unhappy with the “Empire” studio.

Smollett faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced, though he is considered a likely candidate for a probation-only sentence that would keep him from serving time behind bars. His sentencing will not take place until early next year.