Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Jussie Smollett: Withdraws from Reality Show

Transcript

Jussie Smollett: Withdraws from Reality Show · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, Oh My Stars, does it
0:11
Speaker 1: never end with this poser? This felon? Oh My Stars.
0:20
Speaker 1: Jesse Smollett, remember him, the race hoaxer who claimed he
0:27
Speaker 1: was attacked because he is black and gay and when
0:30
Speaker 1: police arrived at his luxury apartment, he still had a
0:34
Speaker 1: rope around his neck. It was all a lie. Oh
0:39
Speaker 1: My Stars, He's getting rewarded. Special Forces the World's Toughest
0:45
Speaker 1: Test unveils its celebrity contestants competing in the fourth season
0:53
Speaker 1: of the Quasie military training reality show Oh My Stars,
1:00
Speaker 1: with Smolette wisecracking on Instagram. It was at this moment
1:06
Speaker 1: I said I should have just done the masked singer Nancy.
1:10
Speaker 2: Jesse's Molett became the fourth celebrity to drop out of
1:13
Speaker 2: season four of Special Forces World's Toughest Test. The stars
1:18
Speaker 2: were dropped into a simulated war zone for a challenge
1:21
Speaker 2: and charged with finding and extracting fallen comrades. When the
1:25
Speaker 2: team reported back to base camp, Jesse's Malette suffered a
1:30
Speaker 2: painful cough and had to be medically discharged.
1:34
Speaker 1: Well, okay, Iike say quite often I've seen it all,
1:39
Speaker 1: but now I really have seen it all. I'mancy Grace,
1:42
Speaker 1: this is crime Stories. I want to thank you for
1:45
Speaker 1: being with us. The disgraced race hoaxer swore he was
1:52
Speaker 1: attacked by two MAGA supporters who actually turned out to
1:57
Speaker 1: be his personal trainer, the Osendaro brothers. They swear under
2:03
Speaker 1: oath he hired them to pour bleach on him and
2:08
Speaker 1: put a noose around his neck to bolster his celebrity
2:13
Speaker 1: profile and get a raise. Remember, he was a star
2:17
Speaker 1: of the hit series Empire that came crashing down after
2:21
Speaker 1: he pulled off this stunt. Let me jog your recollection.
2:26
Speaker 3: Listen to this. You know it's two o'clock in the morning.
2:29
Speaker 3: You're going to subway. Subsperia is open twenty four hours.
2:33
Speaker 4: Like people kill you when they say things like that,
2:35
Speaker 4: because it's like the subway is open twenty four hours
2:37
Speaker 4: for a reason, so that when you're hungry at night
2:39
Speaker 4: and you ain't got no food, you go to subway
2:42
Speaker 4: the camera and be facing north.
2:44
Speaker 3: How is that my issue? It feels like if I
2:49
Speaker 3: had said it was a Muslim or a Mexican.
2:55
Speaker 4: Or someone black, I feel like the Dowters would have
2:58
Speaker 4: supported me a lot, much, a lot more. And that
3:02
Speaker 4: says a lot about the place that we are in
3:04
Speaker 4: our country right now, the fact.
3:06
Speaker 3: That we have these fear mongols, these people that.
3:09
Speaker 4: Are trying to separate us, and.
3:16
Speaker 3: It's just not okay. It's just not okay.
3:19
Speaker 4: And for all of the people, the next time that
3:22
Speaker 4: you see someone report something, maybe well after the fact
3:27
Speaker 4: that it happened, and you say to them, well, why
3:32
Speaker 4: are you waiting until now? Just remember that mine was
3:35
Speaker 4: reported right away and look what has happened.
3:38
Speaker 1: You are hearing TV star Jesse Smillette talking to superstar
3:43
Speaker 1: Robin Roberts on GMA at ABC talking about people who
3:48
Speaker 1: have doubted his story that he was attacked by I
3:54
Speaker 1: believe it started as two white males. It changed at
3:57
Speaker 1: some point wearing red maga hats. I believe is how
4:02
Speaker 1: the story started. That also has changed to am in
4:05
Speaker 1: the morning, coming out of a subway sandwich shop. According
4:10
Speaker 1: to Jesse Similette, everyone knows him big star on Empire.
4:14
Speaker 1: He was attacked the purpose through acid on him, put
4:18
Speaker 1: a rope around his neck. It's my understanding. He called
4:23
Speaker 1: his manager and not nine one one. When he walked
4:27
Speaker 1: back home. He then called nine one one. When police arrived,
4:32
Speaker 1: they found him sitting there and roughed up and the
4:37
Speaker 1: rope steal around his neck. What is the truth. If
4:42
Speaker 1: this is the truth, who attacked him? If it's not
4:45
Speaker 1: the truth. When he talks about his detractors dividing people,
4:51
Speaker 1: is he the one that's dividing people? And again, this
4:56
Speaker 1: is not about politics. I think all editions lie, every
5:02
Speaker 1: single one of them. This is about a potential hoax
5:07
Speaker 1: on police or a horrible hate crime. With me an
5:12
Speaker 1: all star panel forensics expert, and boy do we need
5:15
Speaker 1: her now, Karen Smith out of the Florida jurisdiction, renowned
5:19
Speaker 1: criminal attorney, DARRYLD Cohen, former prosecutor, joining me from Atlanta,
5:24
Speaker 1: join me, joining me from La psychoanalyst doctor Bethany Marshall,
5:30
Speaker 1: and joining me right now, crime online dot COM's Ellenclaurin
5:34
Speaker 1: E K. Let's just start at the beginning. Now, Typically,
5:38
Speaker 1: when I'm hungry at two o'clock, I get something anything,
5:42
Speaker 1: usually the wrong thing, out of the fridge, eat it,
5:45
Speaker 1: and go back to sleep. All right. Usually I don't
5:48
Speaker 1: feel like getting up and even going to the fridge
5:50
Speaker 1: because I'm exhausted. But let's just start with a two
5:53
Speaker 1: am subway sandwich call.
5:55
Speaker 5: Go well, It does appear that johnsy Small at High
6:00
Speaker 5: arrived to the airport in Chicago late. So I don't
6:04
Speaker 5: think this was a matter of him waking up in
6:06
Speaker 5: the middle of that and going out to the spreading
6:08
Speaker 5: cold in the subway. It was a very cold day though,
6:10
Speaker 5: and he's he tells police that he's on his way
6:13
Speaker 5: home with his subway sandwich.
6:15
Speaker 1: W whit whit right, whit whit? Wait? This is in Chicago, correct,
6:21
Speaker 1: that's right? Yea, So how cold is it it?
6:24
Speaker 5: We were pretty sure it was below freedom temperatures. This
6:27
Speaker 5: this was during a very very very cold spell in Chicago.
6:31
Speaker 1: I don't know the exact doctor Bethney. He must have
6:33
Speaker 1: been very hungry, very hungry.
6:36
Speaker 6: Indeed, his tummy must have been growling at two in
6:40
Speaker 6: the morning, because you know, Chicago has those that windshill factor,
6:44
Speaker 6: So if it's twenty degrees out regular temperature, the wind
6:49
Speaker 6: starts blowing forty fifty degree below wind chill. I did
6:52
Speaker 6: my undergraduate work there. Nobody goes out at two.
6:56
Speaker 1: See Darryl Cohen, renowned Atlanta criminal defense attorney, is gnashing
7:00
Speaker 1: his teeth and twitching his tail right now because he
7:04
Speaker 1: thinks the temp has nothing to do with any of this.
7:07
Speaker 1: But that's why I always like to start, Darryl, not
7:09
Speaker 1: with just the temperature, but the beginning. The beginning is
7:14
Speaker 1: he wakes up, according to his story, at two am,
7:18
Speaker 1: and instead of getting left over piece out of the
7:20
Speaker 1: fridge or a whole chocolate cake or whatever the matter
7:23
Speaker 1: may be, he goes out in forty below to get
7:29
Speaker 1: a Subway sandwich. See I start right there, That's where
7:32
Speaker 1: I start the story. And I think that's crazy. I'm
7:36
Speaker 1: not saying it didn't happen. I just think that's Craig
7:38
Speaker 1: cray Well.
7:39
Speaker 7: I'm wondering if Subway was actually open at two in
7:42
Speaker 7: the morning.
7:43
Speaker 1: Yep, they're twenty four hour. Yeah. I love Subway. Although
7:46
Speaker 1: I did have a mini boycott for a week after
7:49
Speaker 1: Jared was, you know, busted on child porn. I guess
7:55
Speaker 1: it was their spokesperson. But long story short, Darryl Cohen,
7:59
Speaker 1: I mean, a defense attorney would argue that has absolutely
8:02
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it.
8:04
Speaker 7: I don't think it has anything to do with it.
8:05
Speaker 7: I think what has to do with it is did
8:08
Speaker 7: it or did it not happen? And as far as
8:10
Speaker 7: I can see, from all the evidence that's been presented
8:13
Speaker 7: to me. This guy is looking for more publicity for
8:16
Speaker 7: whatever the reason, and he is about to get it.
8:20
Speaker 1: Well, he's getting it all right, Okay, e K. Let's
8:22
Speaker 1: just go with the premise that it's true because the official,
8:27
Speaker 1: the official statement from Chicago PD is he is being
8:30
Speaker 1: treated as a victim because he is a victim book
8:37
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. As you will recall, soon
8:46
Speaker 1: after Smilette takes to the airwaves describing how he was
8:51
Speaker 1: the victim of a hate crime, Chicago PD released surveillance
8:55
Speaker 1: images of the perpetrators and the two as also being black.
9:04
Speaker 1: They are Nigerian American brothers. So we see the attackers
9:10
Speaker 1: performing a quote hate crime on Smolette, who is black,
9:15
Speaker 1: and the purpse are black. Okay, just let that soak
9:20
Speaker 1: in for a moment. To claim a hate crime and
9:26
Speaker 1: wrap a rope around your neck as if you were
9:30
Speaker 1: threatened with lynching, nothing could be more incendiary in our
9:36
Speaker 1: American consciousness. A horrible, horrible era that our country endured,
9:47
Speaker 1: all brought to the forefront by Smolette's hoax. Then evidence
9:54
Speaker 1: came out Smolet orchestrated his own attack and paid the
9:58
Speaker 1: brothers nearly four thousand dollars.
10:01
Speaker 3: Idiot wrote a check.
10:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, idiot wrote a check for his hate crime attack.
10:09
Speaker 1: What more do we know?
10:12
Speaker 8: When did you because as you said, it was an
10:15
Speaker 8: accurate account of the timeline, valuable information, when did you
10:22
Speaker 8: make that information available to the police.
10:25
Speaker 4: We gave, we had to give the phone records, which
10:29
Speaker 4: they didn't originally ask for my phone records.
10:31
Speaker 3: They asked for my phone.
10:33
Speaker 4: They wanted me to give my phone to the tech
10:36
Speaker 4: for three to four hours.
10:37
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna do that.
10:44
Speaker 4: Why Because I have private pictures and videos and numbers,
10:49
Speaker 4: my partner's number, my family's number, my castmate's number, my
10:55
Speaker 4: friend's numbers, my private emails, my private songs, my private
10:59
Speaker 4: voice memos.
11:00
Speaker 3: I don't know what that's going to be to hand
11:01
Speaker 3: over my phone for.
11:04
Speaker 4: And honestly, by then, inaccurate false statements had already been
11:08
Speaker 4: put out there.
11:09
Speaker 1: You are hearing our friend superstar Robin Robert said ABC's GMA,
11:14
Speaker 1: She's awesome, and she is talking to Jesse Smolette, the
11:18
Speaker 1: Empire star Everybody Loves Empire, the Empire star who claims
11:23
Speaker 1: that at two am in the morning in Chicago, he
11:27
Speaker 1: decided he was hungry, goes out to subway sandwich, gets
11:30
Speaker 1: a sandwich and is attacked by two guys that throw
11:32
Speaker 1: acid on him or bleach bleach, wrap a rope around
11:38
Speaker 1: his neck, attack him for being black and homosexual. He
11:43
Speaker 1: manages to get home and call police. He says, he
11:45
Speaker 1: calls his manager from the scene. Now, I think that
11:49
Speaker 1: is why they wanted the phone, to confirm that he
11:53
Speaker 1: called his manager and not nine to one one. They
11:56
Speaker 1: are being clear why they want the phone, But they
11:59
Speaker 1: want the phone. Karen Smith, journing me forensics expert out
12:02
Speaker 1: of Florida. Why do they want Jesse Smollett's phone.
12:06
Speaker 9: Listen, when you're dealing with an alleged victim or alleged perpetrators,
12:09
Speaker 9: the best way now in the world of social media
12:12
Speaker 9: and texting is to get the phone of the victim.
12:15
Speaker 9: You can look at text messages and Instagram and Facebook
12:19
Speaker 9: and Twitter and all those things, and text messages especially
12:22
Speaker 9: Listen if nothing happened. And I understand, you know the
12:26
Speaker 9: privacy thing, and there's phone numbers and emails and whatever
12:29
Speaker 9: that he want released. But the police are They're not
12:33
Speaker 9: going to go into that. That's not their interest. Their
12:35
Speaker 9: interest is looking at communications between Jesse Smollett and these
12:40
Speaker 9: other alleged perpetrators, if there was any, if there was any,
12:45
Speaker 9: the phone call that he made to his manager, what
12:47
Speaker 9: time did he make it, where did he make it from?
12:49
Speaker 9: All of those questions have to be answered, and they
12:51
Speaker 9: have to have the device. They can't just take somebody's
12:54
Speaker 9: word for it. That's not how life works anymore.
12:57
Speaker 1: Not anymore. Gerald Cohen, Atlanta, criminal to defense attorney, former prosecutor,
13:01
Speaker 1: felony prosecutor in the jurisdiction where I also prosecuted. I
13:05
Speaker 1: just missed him, Darryl. At the time when we were
13:09
Speaker 1: when I first started prosecuting, we did not have DNA,
13:12
Speaker 1: we did not have cell phone pinging. We did it
13:15
Speaker 1: old school, okay, and we did it now with the
13:19
Speaker 1: advent of cell phone triangulation GPS tracking. When he is
13:26
Speaker 1: saying that he won't hand his phone over, that is
13:31
Speaker 1: a problem to me. I don't have a problem with
13:34
Speaker 1: anything else he's saying. But when he says find you
13:36
Speaker 1: know what, I don't have to explain why he's hungry
13:38
Speaker 1: at two am or goes out in sub zero that
13:41
Speaker 1: below freezing. That's a personal decision. But when you don't
13:45
Speaker 1: hand your phone over to cops. That is a big
13:49
Speaker 1: red flag to hay with your private communications. If you
13:53
Speaker 1: have had bleach poured on, you, beaten up, have a
13:58
Speaker 1: rope tied around your neck out on the street, you're
14:01
Speaker 1: handing your phone over because you want those people caught, right,
14:05
Speaker 1: I mean, have I lost my mind on that one thing, Darryl.
14:08
Speaker 7: Well, Nancy, I'm having a very big problem with finding
14:11
Speaker 7: out why he would call his manager. So the last
14:14
Speaker 7: time I checked, was not a law enforcement person, was
14:17
Speaker 7: not a bodyguard. Why would you not call the police
14:21
Speaker 7: any of us. Any of us, whether we're an actor,
14:24
Speaker 7: whether we're a lawyer, whether an Indian chief, whatever we
14:27
Speaker 7: may be, we are going to call the police if
14:30
Speaker 7: something bad happens. So yeah, I've got a real problem
14:33
Speaker 7: with him not turning over his phone. This guy is Jesse,
14:37
Speaker 7: but he thinks he's Jesse James. He is having you
14:41
Speaker 7: work now, he's having a real problem.
14:43
Speaker 1: You probably see that all night, law Thank you having
14:46
Speaker 1: it coming up with that. He's not Jesse, he's Jesse James. Okay,
14:49
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to just pass over that one.
14:51
Speaker 1: You know, it's a big deal to me, Darryl, And
14:56
Speaker 1: I know you're a famous defense attorney now, but in
14:59
Speaker 1: my mind, you'll always be an incredible felony prosecutor because
15:04
Speaker 1: you could get a jury eating out of your hand.
15:06
Speaker 1: You're always prepared. You need the law, you need the facts.
15:10
Speaker 1: You knew it all when you went in front of
15:12
Speaker 1: a jury. And in this case, when you have a
15:16
Speaker 1: victim that does not cooperate with police, that is a problem.
15:20
Speaker 1: I don't care who he is. I don't care who
15:23
Speaker 1: he sleeps with. I could not care less. I don't care.
15:28
Speaker 1: But if you don't cooperate with police, then that is
15:32
Speaker 1: a problem with me. What's your problem?
15:36
Speaker 7: It's a problem with me as well. I've got another
15:39
Speaker 7: problem with that. How in the world in the middle
15:41
Speaker 7: of the night, two am, nine degrees minus nine degrees.
15:45
Speaker 7: It's about the same frozen do you get mugged by
15:51
Speaker 7: two people who know you're obviously black but you're homosexual?
15:55
Speaker 1: Really and you well because he's a famous place on
15:58
Speaker 1: this TV star. So here's the thing, this is another
16:03
Speaker 1: wrinkle in this. To Ellenklauren Crime online dot Com, hold on,
16:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to write this down. Here's the thing. So,
16:10
Speaker 1: if they were targeting Jesse Smollette, Okay, hold on, if
16:15
Speaker 1: they were targeting him and this was a hate crime.
16:19
Speaker 1: How did they know to be outside the subway at
16:24
Speaker 1: two am with bleach and rope? Or are they just
16:28
Speaker 1: hanging around to get a sandwich and they happen to
16:30
Speaker 1: have bleach and rope with them? If they were targeting
16:35
Speaker 1: Jesse Smolette, e kay, were they casing out his apartment?
16:41
Speaker 1: Why were they there at two am? And I haven't
16:44
Speaker 1: even touched on these two guys, these two Nigerian guys
16:50
Speaker 1: that work out in his apartment building gym that know him,
16:56
Speaker 1: that have been extras on the set of Empire, or
16:59
Speaker 1: at least one of them has that have been questioned
17:03
Speaker 1: and released and allegedly are now saying they were paid
17:08
Speaker 1: to do the attack. But first of all, I'm going
17:10
Speaker 1: to get to the theory, Ellen to Laurence. So the
17:14
Speaker 1: perps were what waiting outside the subway sandwich shop for him?
17:18
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the theory here? How did they know
17:21
Speaker 1: he was going to be getting a sandwich at two am?
17:24
Speaker 1: If he was the one targeted for a hate crime.
17:27
Speaker 9: Well, Nancy, they.
17:28
Speaker 5: May have not known that he was going to get
17:30
Speaker 5: a sandwich at two am, But Jesse has an un
17:34
Speaker 5: Instagram account.
17:35
Speaker 6: And he's a very active social media user.
17:37
Speaker 5: And we learned over the weekend that he had been
17:40
Speaker 5: in New York during the previous days and he was
17:43
Speaker 5: on He had slowed back to Chicago that night, but
17:47
Speaker 5: his flight was the lead and he came in much
17:50
Speaker 5: later than expected, and he posted a couple of Instagram
17:53
Speaker 5: stories on his Instagram account talking about how.
17:58
Speaker 9: His flight was the leaded.
18:00
Speaker 5: Someone who had to have had a little bit of
18:03
Speaker 5: information about what was going on with him that day.
18:06
Speaker 5: If they wanted to track his movements, they could to
18:09
Speaker 5: a certain degree through his social media activity.
18:12
Speaker 1: Jesse Smilett, the infamous race hoaxer, the former star of Empire.
18:18
Speaker 1: He brought that Crashing Down is going to star on
18:22
Speaker 1: Special Forces World's Toughest Test.
18:24
Speaker 2: The teams had to navigate tough terrain, obstacles and fake
18:28
Speaker 2: explosions for the reality series in the hot Moroccan desert. Reportedly,
18:33
Speaker 2: Jesse was determined to power through the difficult reality competition,
18:38
Speaker 2: but in addition to nearly throwing up mid exercise, he
18:41
Speaker 2: developed a nasty cough that became worse, ultimately leading to
18:46
Speaker 2: him being declared medically ineligible.
18:49
Speaker 1: Guys, what more do we know?
18:51
Speaker 4: I think that what people need to hear is just
18:54
Speaker 4: the truth. It's just the truth, because everybody has their
19:00
Speaker 4: own idea. Some are healing and some are hurtful. But
19:06
Speaker 4: I just want young people, young members of the LGBTQ community,
19:12
Speaker 4: young black children, to know how strong that they are,
19:17
Speaker 4: to know the power that they hold in their little pinky.
19:21
Speaker 10: It's been two weeks since that night left actor Jesse
19:24
Speaker 10: Smolett bruised but not broken, and he's still processing the
19:28
Speaker 10: raw motions.
19:29
Speaker 3: Have you ever been threatened before? Yeah?
19:32
Speaker 4: I get threatened all the time on Twitter and Instagram
19:37
Speaker 4: and dms and things like that.
19:38
Speaker 3: It's like, but you know, I'm a public figure.
19:43
Speaker 4: I'm very outspoken. Sometimes maybe too outspoken, but it's who
19:52
Speaker 4: I am, you know, So I get the idea of
19:57
Speaker 4: pissing people off, that you're gonna rub people.
20:00
Speaker 10: In fact, the week before the attack, police confirm a
20:04
Speaker 10: letter was sent to the Fox studio in Chicago with
20:06
Speaker 10: threatening language, at least with powdery substance likely Taylanol, do
20:11
Speaker 10: you think there's a link between the letter and the attack?
20:16
Speaker 10: And you did mention it to the police right away out.
20:18
Speaker 11: Of the letter, absolutely, just because on the letter it
20:22
Speaker 11: had a stick figure hanging from a tree with a
20:25
Speaker 11: gun pointing towards it, with the words that said small
20:28
Speaker 11: at Jesse, you will die black.
20:30
Speaker 3: There was no address, but the return address.
20:32
Speaker 4: It in big red, you know, like caps, maga Did
20:37
Speaker 4: I make that up too?
20:39
Speaker 1: You are hearing our friend Robin Roberts at ABC'SGMA speaking
20:42
Speaker 1: with Empire star Jesse Smillett, And right now we know
20:46
Speaker 1: that the police investigation is going on. Police chief has
20:48
Speaker 1: confirmed the two guys that allegedly are identified in the
20:53
Speaker 1: video that police believe committed the act the attack on
20:58
Speaker 1: Jesse Smollett has been apprehended, questioned, and released with no charges.
21:06
Speaker 1: What about these letters, Ellen Calaurin, What are the letters
21:10
Speaker 1: that he claims he got leading up to this attack?
21:14
Speaker 1: Threatening letters?
21:16
Speaker 5: Yes, one, exactly one week before the night of the
21:20
Speaker 5: alleged assault, a letter was sent to the studio where
21:25
Speaker 5: he filmed the show Empire in Chicago, and it contained
21:29
Speaker 5: direct death threats, homophobic.
21:32
Speaker 6: And racist language.
21:34
Speaker 5: There's two things about the letter that are coming up
21:37
Speaker 5: more recently in the discussion around this case. One of
21:40
Speaker 5: those is that some unidentified forces who have access to
21:45
Speaker 5: the set and may even work with Jesse, have told
21:49
Speaker 5: CBS News that he was unhappy about the response to
21:53
Speaker 5: the letter and the threat that he got, that he
21:55
Speaker 5: felt that there wasn't it wasn't taken seriously enough, and
21:59
Speaker 5: that he was angry, and that they're questioning did he
22:03
Speaker 5: set up this orchestrate this purported hate crime as retaliation
22:09
Speaker 5: for that. The other thing that we're learning, and again
22:12
Speaker 5: these are not official law enforcement statements. These are unidentified sources.
22:16
Speaker 5: You are talking to new Thoughtless. But we're learning that
22:19
Speaker 5: the letter was made out of and you can see
22:21
Speaker 5: it in the photos.
22:22
Speaker 9: The letter was written sort of.
22:24
Speaker 5: Like a ransom type of letter with cutout letters from
22:27
Speaker 5: a magazine. And we're hearing that when investigators went and
22:32
Speaker 5: raided the apartment of these two brothers who have been
22:35
Speaker 5: identified as possibly involved in this attack, they took away
22:39
Speaker 5: a magazine.
22:40
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, dodgor Bethany Marshall. Are
22:43
Speaker 1: these threat letters like the kinds you see on Agatha
22:47
Speaker 1: Christi and Erquille Poirot, like in the movies where you
22:52
Speaker 1: cut out letters from the newspaper and you stick them
22:56
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper instead of divulging your handwriting.
23:01
Speaker 1: And also we are learning for sure that in a
23:05
Speaker 1: follow up visit by investigators, Malette says the attackers mentioned
23:09
Speaker 1: something about this is Maga country, which relates back to
23:13
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign. So the whole situation is fluid, but
23:18
Speaker 1: I can tell you this. Remember the runaway Bride when
23:22
Speaker 1: she lied about getting kidnapped, she got to cut grass
23:26
Speaker 1: and do community service out in the public. I forgot
23:29
Speaker 1: how long other people have done jail time, hard jail
23:34
Speaker 1: time for bringing police in on a hoax of an investigation,
23:39
Speaker 1: because who knows what crimes were really happening at the
23:42
Speaker 1: time of a hoax, and instead of dealing with the
23:45
Speaker 1: real crime, cops are out spending thousands and thousands of
23:50
Speaker 1: dollars and man hours trying to solve a fake call.
23:53
Speaker 1: And this one, if it is fake, is a whopper.
23:58
Speaker 1: Now what do you make Dr bethany More? Marshall the studio,
24:01
Speaker 1: the Empire Studio had assigned him bodyguards, we've been told,
24:06
Speaker 1: but according to sources, he was unhappy with the reaction
24:10
Speaker 1: to the letters. Does that mean what they didn't get
24:12
Speaker 1: enough attention? What does that mean to you, doctor bethany.
24:15
Speaker 6: Well, you were mentioning the runaway Bride and these crimes
24:19
Speaker 6: where we find out it's a hoax in the end.
24:22
Speaker 6: And I don't know if this was a hoax or not.
24:24
Speaker 6: But in forensic interviews, one of the things we're trained
24:28
Speaker 6: to do with crime victims is to find out if
24:31
Speaker 6: they're doing something called malingering. MA Lingering is when you
24:35
Speaker 6: make up medical symptoms or you exaggerate medical symptoms for
24:41
Speaker 6: some external reward. It's that simple. Now, in twenty percent
24:45
Speaker 6: of criminal cases, lingering is involved in some way, twenty
24:50
Speaker 6: percent of PI cases, as you can imagine MA lingering,
24:53
Speaker 6: thirty percent of disability cases. The sicker I am, the
24:57
Speaker 6: more I'm going to get some kind of reward or attention,
25:00
Speaker 6: or I'm going to get out of some consequence, like
25:04
Speaker 6: You're not going to send me to jail, I'm not
25:06
Speaker 6: going to have to go to the military. So what's
25:09
Speaker 6: so interesting to me about this story is the exaggerate
25:13
Speaker 6: two aspects, the exaggerated nature of his symptoms. He's sitting
25:18
Speaker 6: on the sidewalk, bleach on his clothing, the rope around
25:22
Speaker 6: his neck. Wouldn't you pull a rope off? No, he's
25:24
Speaker 6: sitting there, you know, with the clear sign that he's
25:27
Speaker 6: been accosted. He talks about being black, gay, LGBTQ. Anything
25:32
Speaker 6: that could paint him in a sympathetic light he keeps
25:35
Speaker 6: putting out there. The second aspect is the fuzzy nature
25:39
Speaker 6: of the timeline. When somebody lingers, they usually obstruct the
25:44
Speaker 6: investigation process. They do not want the investigators to know
25:48
Speaker 6: clearly what happens. So if I have a patient and
25:50
Speaker 6: my practice, who's malingering? You know, doctor Marshall, I was,
25:53
Speaker 6: I don't know. My boss keeps.
25:55
Speaker 9: Yelling at me.
25:55
Speaker 6: I want to bring a lawsuit. You know, I say, well,
25:58
Speaker 6: what did your boss say? Well, I don't know. I
25:59
Speaker 6: just can't remember. So lingering is associated with very fuzzy
26:04
Speaker 6: dcare Now.
26:05
Speaker 1: Is it true? Ek ellencalorin Crime online dot Com investigative
26:08
Speaker 1: reporter that Smold had been in New York to audition
26:12
Speaker 1: for a role in the play that is very oddly
26:17
Speaker 1: similar to his alleged attack. What do we know about
26:22
Speaker 1: the play for which he was auditioning.
26:26
Speaker 6: He was at a reading.
26:28
Speaker 5: Actually it was an audition.
26:29
Speaker 9: I believe he's already.
26:31
Speaker 5: Part of the cast. But that's what he was doing
26:33
Speaker 5: in New York. He was flying back to he was
26:35
Speaker 5: flying back to Chicago from New York, and he was
26:37
Speaker 5: in New York because he was doing a reading of
26:40
Speaker 5: the script of this play. And the character in the
26:43
Speaker 5: play is a person of color, it's a gay, it's
26:46
Speaker 5: a celebrity, a sports star in the cave in the
26:49
Speaker 5: case of the fictional character. But he is someone who
26:53
Speaker 5: the character is someone who has been the victim of
26:57
Speaker 5: hate crimes that according to the reports that we're reading
27:00
Speaker 5: that have some similarities in the crime that was allegedly
27:05
Speaker 5: committed against him, just that within hours of him arriving.
27:09
Speaker 1: Back to Chicago for the same wording, the same slurs,
27:13
Speaker 1: awful slurs. If this is true, it is a hate crime.
27:17
Speaker 1: I'm learning also Daryl Cohen, Atlanta criminal defense attorney, former
27:22
Speaker 1: prosecutor in felony court that he Smolette did not call police.
27:27
Speaker 1: It was a close associate about forty minutes after the attack,
27:30
Speaker 1: according to the New York Times, and I think that
27:33
Speaker 1: was his manager. He did not call police. And when
27:36
Speaker 1: Cox got to his place, he still was wearing the
27:39
Speaker 1: rope around his neck.
27:41
Speaker 7: Helped me, well, I can help you, Nancy, because it
27:45
Speaker 7: sounds to me like a setup. Did you also pay
27:48
Speaker 7: attention to his voice. This is a guy that's reading
27:52
Speaker 7: a script. This is not someone who's upset. This is
27:55
Speaker 7: not someone who's been attacked. If you're attacked, you're not
27:59
Speaker 7: going to be and gentle. Add that to the cocktail.
28:03
Speaker 7: Add the fact that he's not giving his phone to
28:05
Speaker 7: the police to the cocktail. Add the fact that all
28:10
Speaker 7: he can do is say, oh my gosh, I was
28:13
Speaker 7: attacked and this is terrible. But he has a noose
28:16
Speaker 7: around his neck forty minutes later. Really, this is a
28:20
Speaker 7: guy who was Look many times, Nancy, people equate stars
28:27
Speaker 7: on television or on the big screen with intelligence. Sorry,
28:31
Speaker 7: not the same. Some are, some are not. This guy
28:35
Speaker 7: is reading a script. He saw a way to get even.
28:39
Speaker 7: Perhaps he saw a way to make more money. Perhaps,
28:41
Speaker 7: But what he didn't see is that he's not as
28:44
Speaker 7: bright as he believes himself to be. So he's not shakesap.
28:48
Speaker 1: Take a listen to CBS Chicago reporter Charlie DeMar brothers
28:52
Speaker 1: Ola and abel Osendaro, captured on Streeterville surveillance cameras, told
28:56
Speaker 1: detectives their.
28:57
Speaker 12: Role in the reported January twenty ninth to ten on
29:00
Speaker 12: actor Jesse Smollette, according to multiple sources. Those sources say
29:05
Speaker 12: Smolett pay the brothers thousands to carry out a staged attack.
29:09
Speaker 12: Somolette had this to say about the scuffle with his attackers.
29:12
Speaker 3: He said, this.
29:14
Speaker 4: Maga country punches me right in the face.
29:17
Speaker 3: I've punster ass back.
29:19
Speaker 4: I noticed the rope around my neck and I started screaming.
29:22
Speaker 1: People that make false claims to police, much less to
29:25
Speaker 1: this extent usually land behind bars. If they're regular mortals
29:31
Speaker 1: like all of us. If your Hollywood star, maybe you
29:34
Speaker 1: get different treatment. Jesse Smollette, superstar on the cast of Empire,
29:40
Speaker 1: to Ellenclaurencrimeline dot com, investigative reporter where we have all
29:46
Speaker 1: breaking crime and justice news. Ellen, what can you tell
29:48
Speaker 1: me about these two guys. Everyone refers to them as Nigerian.
29:52
Speaker 1: They're American. That's right, Nancy.
29:54
Speaker 5: They were bored and raised in Chicago. The reason I
29:57
Speaker 5: believe that people are calling them that you're this because they,
30:01
Speaker 5: for reasons that have not been explained and I do
30:03
Speaker 5: not understand, apparently flew to Nigeria the day after the
30:07
Speaker 5: attack and came back to Chicago last week where they
30:11
Speaker 5: were met with investigators at the airport. That has not
30:14
Speaker 5: been explained why that happened or if it had anything
30:17
Speaker 5: to do at all with the alleged assaults. And I
30:22
Speaker 5: also wanted to point something else out since we're talking
30:25
Speaker 5: about the.
30:26
Speaker 6: Rope and the phone.
30:29
Speaker 5: A lot of the things that have come up in
30:30
Speaker 5: recent days really don't look look good like they look
30:34
Speaker 5: very suspicious, and things are starting to really maybe fall
30:38
Speaker 5: apart here in this story. But a couple of things
30:41
Speaker 5: I think are not suspicious that happened here. I don't
30:44
Speaker 5: think it's suspicious that he did not want to hand
30:47
Speaker 5: over his entire phone immediately. He's a public figure, he's
30:51
Speaker 5: a celebrity.
30:52
Speaker 9: You who had allen received.
30:54
Speaker 1: Before allan, have you ever been attacked at two am,
30:57
Speaker 1: had a rope tied around your neck and bleach port on?
31:01
Speaker 1: Because if you have, I'd like to have you know
31:02
Speaker 1: about that, okay, because if that happens to you and
31:05
Speaker 1: your life is in danger, and cops say we need
31:07
Speaker 1: your phone, you go here whatever I mean, when the
31:11
Speaker 1: cop pulls me over, which has happened, I like say,
31:15
Speaker 1: whatever here, take it all, okay, just please leave my
31:19
Speaker 1: children behind whatever. I don't want a problem with a cop. Okay.
31:25
Speaker 1: Nobody should be above the law. And if they want
31:28
Speaker 1: your phone, give your phone. But you know what, that's
31:31
Speaker 1: you and this is me, so go ahead with your analysis, okay.
31:37
Speaker 5: But what I wanted to also say is that I
31:39
Speaker 5: believe he did agree a hand over the full on
31:41
Speaker 5: record about the rope. What we heard in the in
31:45
Speaker 5: the beginning of this narrative was that he kept the
31:48
Speaker 5: rope around his neck because he didn't want to sort
31:50
Speaker 5: of disturb the scene and he wanted the responding officers
31:55
Speaker 5: to see what had been done. That was the explanation
31:59
Speaker 5: for the rope of you left.
32:01
Speaker 1: You know what, I hear you, And he could have
32:05
Speaker 1: claimed that he did not want his DNA his I
32:10
Speaker 1: don't think you get prints off rope, but any of
32:12
Speaker 1: his fibers or DNA on the rope or to ruin
32:15
Speaker 1: any evidence on the rope, So I can understand that.
32:18
Speaker 1: Now it's my understanding that he did hand over phone records,
32:25
Speaker 1: but that they were heavily redacted crime stories with Nancy
32:34
Speaker 1: Grace X his on fire one user says, yikes, someone
32:43
Speaker 1: giving Jesse Smilette a platform after all the let me
32:47
Speaker 1: just say crap he pulled is a little scary. Another says,
32:52
Speaker 1: I thought he was in jail, Well, you're right, that's
32:55
Speaker 1: where he should be. Another says on X, why is
32:59
Speaker 1: Jesse Smilllette not in jail. Another I say, Jesse Smollette
33:04
Speaker 1: still trying to reinvent himself, like we forgot he staged
33:07
Speaker 1: a fake hate crime to become famous. Another says this
33:12
Speaker 1: is bleak. Another says the return of Juicy Smollett. Is
33:20
Speaker 1: he going to convince us he's a quote tough guy?
33:24
Speaker 1: Jesse Smollette getting rewarded Special Forces The World's Toughest Test.
33:31
Speaker 2: Nancy Smollette became the fourth celebrity to drop out of
33:35
Speaker 2: season four of Special Forces World's Toughest Test. When his
33:39
Speaker 2: co stars realized that Smollette had developed a nasty cough,
33:44
Speaker 2: his co stars encouraged him to go to the medic
33:47
Speaker 2: Special Forces doctor Andy Brown, the chief medical officer, listened
33:51
Speaker 2: to Jesse's lungs and declared he had inflammation throughout his
33:55
Speaker 2: chest and Jesse had to admit it hurt every time
33:59
Speaker 2: he coughed. Doctor Andy determined that Smolette had developed an
34:03
Speaker 2: allergy to something in the dust, medically withdrawing Smolett from
34:07
Speaker 2: the show. In his confessional, Smollette said, quote, there have
34:10
Speaker 2: been too many opportunities in my life to quit on
34:13
Speaker 2: things on myself, and I don't quit easily.
34:17
Speaker 1: Everybody joining in on X is right. Anither gets real
34:21
Speaker 1: and says Jesse Smolette is such a gross and unnecessary
34:24
Speaker 1: casting choice. Why is everyone up in arms? This is why?
34:29
Speaker 1: According to TMZ our friend Harvey Levin, the phone records
34:34
Speaker 1: were handed over and the cops rejected them. The cops
34:39
Speaker 1: rejected them, Darryl Coen, are you sitting down? The cops
34:42
Speaker 1: rejected them, saying that they were so heavily redacted that
34:49
Speaker 1: they were basically of no use. What about handing over
34:52
Speaker 1: your phone records to cop if and you redact them?
34:57
Speaker 7: Oh, come on, Nancy, this is absurd. If you have
35:00
Speaker 7: a victim of a crime, First of all, I want
35:03
Speaker 7: to go back to the to the news. If I've
35:05
Speaker 7: got a noose around my neck, oh my god, I'm
35:07
Speaker 7: going to rip that off as quickly as I possibly can,
35:10
Speaker 7: because I am freaked out. This guy was not hurt.
35:14
Speaker 7: This guy was not attacked. He is looking for publicity.
35:18
Speaker 7: He may have won an Emmy for Empire, but the
35:21
Speaker 7: news outlets in Chicago are going to win a news
35:24
Speaker 7: Emmy for their coverage of this guy who doesn't recognize
35:28
Speaker 7: the truth from a lie. He is scripted, and he's
35:31
Speaker 7: gotten himself into a problem. He's a walking living soap opera.
35:36
Speaker 1: The whole reason they got interested in the phone records
35:38
Speaker 1: to start with is that Smollette said to Comps he
35:41
Speaker 1: was on the phone with his manager at the time
35:44
Speaker 1: of the attack, and that the manager says he heard
35:48
Speaker 1: the racial and homophobic slurs being thrown, and they want
35:54
Speaker 1: to authenticate that that call was in fact made. They
35:58
Speaker 1: as slalent for the records about two weeks before they
36:01
Speaker 1: got a PDF file. Now, police also say their cameras
36:06
Speaker 1: everywhere in the area, but there is a sixty second
36:09
Speaker 1: gap in the video where you don't see the Empire Star,
36:13
Speaker 1: so there's no video of the actual attack. I've looked
36:16
Speaker 1: at shots of the video and you see two persons
36:19
Speaker 1: of interest in surveillance footage. Now, this is what is
36:22
Speaker 1: telling to me. Dr Bethany Marshall. These two guys that
36:25
Speaker 1: everybody calls Nigerians, they're Americans, Let's be very clear on that.
36:30
Speaker 1: Who take off to Nigeria the day after the attack.
36:34
Speaker 1: They work out in his building. At least one of
36:37
Speaker 1: them does in the gym in Spolett's building, his apartment building.
36:42
Speaker 1: One of them has been an extra on the set.
36:44
Speaker 1: They're totally buff. They look like their bodybuilders. I've seen
36:47
Speaker 1: their photos and I never see them wearing a shirt.
36:50
Speaker 1: I mean not judging, but they are totally buff. So
36:53
Speaker 1: you can see they work out all the time. They
36:56
Speaker 1: take off for Nigeria. The day after the attack, they
36:59
Speaker 1: come back, the buy the cops. They are questioned, they
37:03
Speaker 1: are released Dtor Bethany no charges, and after meeting with them,
37:08
Speaker 1: cops say they want to reinterview Jesse Smollett. What does
37:12
Speaker 1: that say to you, doctor Bethany.
37:14
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, the trip to Nigeria, they're now
37:16
Speaker 6: thirty five hundred dollars richer because they just got paid
37:19
Speaker 6: for the attack, right, And some people do not think
37:24
Speaker 6: ahead when they collude with somebody who's drawing them into
37:27
Speaker 6: a crime. So they thought, I may have fought, no
37:29
Speaker 6: big deal. We'll rough them up, we'll put a rope
37:32
Speaker 6: around his neck, we'll take vacation, we'll come back. This
37:35
Speaker 6: will have all blown over. But you know what, they
37:38
Speaker 6: talk to the police, and as I was saying about malingering,
37:41
Speaker 6: the whole story does not shake out. The timeline is
37:44
Speaker 6: not consistent, and so the police are going to look
37:47
Speaker 6: to Jesse. And I would wonder what is Jesse's reward
37:52
Speaker 6: in all of this When people malinger symptoms. You know,
37:55
Speaker 6: I was roughed up, I was a victim. They do
37:57
Speaker 6: it for a reward. Is he trying to up his
38:02
Speaker 6: Twitter following? Is he negotiating a contract right now and
38:06
Speaker 6: he wants to prove to the EP of the show
38:10
Speaker 6: that he is the center of a national news situation.
38:15
Speaker 6: Is he wanting to take somebody else's role in empire?
38:19
Speaker 6: You know, I think that there's a reward there somewhere,
38:23
Speaker 6: And if you follow that trail, the whole thing begins.
38:25
Speaker 1: Well, I've been looking in researching and following and asking questions.
38:29
Speaker 1: According to CBS Chicago, who is there on the scene,
38:34
Speaker 1: Cotts want to speak to Smollette again based on quote
38:37
Speaker 1: new evidence they learn from the two friends the two
38:40
Speaker 1: guys now, According to CBS, two sources told them that
38:47
Speaker 1: Smolette pay the two guys thirty five hundred dollars to
38:50
Speaker 1: stage the attack. This is CBS This Morning Anchor John Dickerson.
38:56
Speaker 1: Take a listen to what they see on the video.
38:58
Speaker 13: Please are looking for two potential persons of interest in
39:01
Speaker 13: a possible hate crime against actor Jesse Smollett. Police say
39:05
Speaker 13: a surveillance camera took these images of the two men
39:09
Speaker 13: on the night Smollette says he was beaten. The star
39:12
Speaker 13: of the TV drama Empire said his masked at attackers
39:16
Speaker 13: yelled racist and homophobic slurs. Dean Reynolds is tracking the investigation.
39:21
Speaker 14: The investigators are hoping the FBI can enhance those images
39:25
Speaker 14: to provide some distinguishing details. Now the men are not
39:28
Speaker 14: considered suspects, but the police do want to know who
39:32
Speaker 14: they are and what they were doing when Smollett says
39:35
Speaker 14: he was attacked.
39:36
Speaker 15: Sources tell CBS News the two figures seen in these
39:39
Speaker 15: dark surveillance images were also spotted sitting on a bench
39:43
Speaker 15: when Jesse Smolette walked past them across the street. They
39:47
Speaker 15: then appear to get up and follow him, although the
39:49
Speaker 15: three of them are never seen on camera together. About
39:52
Speaker 15: a minute later, investigators say another security camera captured Smolette
39:57
Speaker 15: returning to his apartment with a news tied around his neck.
40:01
Speaker 15: The rope was untied but still on his neck when
40:04
Speaker 15: police arrived, forty five minutes after he says he was attacked.
40:08
Speaker 1: The truth about Jesse Smollette.
40:11
Speaker 3: I think I already know the.
40:13
Speaker 1: Truth joining the infamous race hoaxer, stirring up racial animosity
40:21
Speaker 1: like nobody else. Jesse Smlette set to star in a
40:25
Speaker 1: reality show along with the Real Housewives of New Jersey
40:28
Speaker 1: cast member Teresa Judice, whose own brush with the law
40:33
Speaker 1: involved an eleven month prison sentence for fraud. Ooh, she's
40:39
Speaker 1: going to compete along with her daughter Jia.
40:43
Speaker 3: Oh.
40:44
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess some Smollett's in good company. Other contestants
40:49
Speaker 1: for season four include Kristin Cavalieri's ex boyfriend Mark Estes.
40:56
Speaker 1: I may not know who all these contestants are, but
40:59
Speaker 1: I know who Jesse's Melennias. As fans respond, quote, I
41:03
Speaker 1: thought he was in jail. Well he should be. We
41:07
Speaker 1: wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend,