Jussie Smollett will be released from jail pending the appeal of his conviction for staging a hoax hate crime against himself and then falsely reporting it to police, an appeals court ruled in a 2-1 decision Wednesday.
The ruling comes one week after the former Empire star was sentenced to five months in an Illinois jail for the hoax, which occurred in 2019.
Smollett’s attorneys argued that the disgraced actor would have finished out his sentence by the time the appeal process had been completed and raised concerns that he could be in danger of physical harm if he remained in Cook County Jail.
It was not immediately clear how soon Smollett would be released, according to the Associated Press.
Source: National Review
