Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 'EMPIRE' Star Fakes Hate Crime on Self? Jussie Smollett on Cross Exam Now

Transcript

'EMPIRE' Star Fakes Hate Crime on Self? Jussie Smollett on Cross Exam Now · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:07
Speaker 1: It is d day for Empire star Jesse Smilette. He
0:13
Speaker 1: is on cross examination in a court of law. This
0:16
Speaker 1: is after the star makes the risky decision to throw
0:21
Speaker 1: the dice and take the stand in his own defense.
0:30
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Typically a defendant will not
0:40
Speaker 1: take the stand because they cannot endure cross examination under
0:44
Speaker 1: the old adage, better to remain silent and let people
0:49
Speaker 1: assume you're lying than speak and confirm their suspicions. Well,
0:55
Speaker 1: Smilett on the stand, but what if anything, does it prove?
1:01
Speaker 1: Small at The star of hit series Empire claims he
1:05
Speaker 1: was the victim of a racial and gay based hate
1:11
Speaker 1: crime when he leaves his high rise luxury apartment at
1:16
Speaker 1: two am for a subway in subzero temperatures. He claims
1:22
Speaker 1: his assailants were waiting for him out in the cold
1:26
Speaker 1: through bleach on him and tied a noose around his neck.
1:32
Speaker 1: Is that true? The other problem with a defendant taking
1:35
Speaker 1: the stand we all know, all you llegal eagles know
1:39
Speaker 1: that the burden of proving a case is solely on
1:43
Speaker 1: the defendant, on the state's shoulders. The defendant has to
1:46
Speaker 1: prove nothing at trial, absolutely nothing. And I have had
1:51
Speaker 1: cases where I put up my case and the defendant says,
1:54
Speaker 1: we rest and don't. They don't put up anything because
1:57
Speaker 1: they don't have a burden too. But once the defendant
2:00
Speaker 1: takes the stand, even though it's not the law, the
2:05
Speaker 1: burden seemingly shifts in the minds of the gerars too.
2:10
Speaker 1: Is the defendant telling the truth, it becomes a litmus
2:13
Speaker 1: test of truth versus lie. Again, I Mancy graces his
2:18
Speaker 1: crime stories nice for being with us. First of all, guys,
2:21
Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to our cut thority.
2:24
Speaker 1: This is Charlie Dumar at CBS. The actor took center
2:27
Speaker 1: stage at his own trial today, trying to convince jurors
2:30
Speaker 1: he did not choreograph an attack on himself. The defense
2:33
Speaker 1: attorney asking were you planning a hoax? Smolette saying no,
2:36
Speaker 1: there was no hoax. Smolette also denied paying the Osendaro
2:40
Speaker 1: brothers to buy supplies, and when asked why he didn't
2:42
Speaker 1: call police, he said quote, I'm a black man in America.
2:46
Speaker 1: I do not trust police. I was also a well
2:48
Speaker 1: known figure at the time and openly gay. I wanted
2:51
Speaker 1: to play a boxer. I wanted to play a superhero.
2:53
Speaker 1: The moment I got beat. I became an expletive who
2:56
Speaker 1: got whooped. Nearly three years ago, on a frigid January night,
3:00
Speaker 1: Smilin told police that Pugh was the victim of a
3:02
Speaker 1: racist and homophobic he crime. Guys, again, you're hearing Charlie
3:06
Speaker 1: Jamarrows CBS describing what's happening in the courtroom with me
3:09
Speaker 1: an all star panel to make sense of what we
3:11
Speaker 1: know right now. Professor Brian Levin, our esteemed guest director
3:16
Speaker 1: for the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism
3:21
Speaker 1: at San Bernardino, co author of the Limits of Descent.
3:25
Speaker 1: Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags on Amazon
3:30
Speaker 1: and host of Today with Doctor Wendy on KCBQ, San Diego.
3:35
Speaker 1: Renowned psychiatrist joining us from the Atlanta Jurisdiction Doctor Angela
3:39
Speaker 1: Arnold at Angela Arnold, MD, dot Com. Forensics expert Joseph
3:44
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University and author of
3:48
Speaker 1: Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and start of another
3:51
Speaker 1: new hit series, Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan on iHeart.
3:56
Speaker 1: But first, let's go to crime Online dot Com to
4:00
Speaker 1: get a reporter Alexis Terres. Alexis has been on the
4:03
Speaker 1: case from the very beginning. So Alexis Jesse Smilett takes
4:08
Speaker 1: the stand. Now he's starting his cross examination. Explain to
4:14
Speaker 1: me what happened on direct exam? Was Jesse Smilett? So
4:18
Speaker 1: he spent quite a few hours first with his defense attorney.
4:22
Speaker 1: The prosecutor just had a very had a very quick
4:26
Speaker 1: point that he wanted to make. He went right in
4:29
Speaker 1: on his relationship with the brothers. He wanted to know
4:32
Speaker 1: who wait, wait, wait, who is he the defense lawyer
4:36
Speaker 1: Smilette or the prosecutor? The prosecutor? Okay, so could you
4:39
Speaker 1: rephrase place the prosecutor was able to question Smilette, he
4:44
Speaker 1: went he went right for the relationship with the brothers
4:47
Speaker 1: because this is the key to this whole case. Is
4:50
Speaker 1: Jesse telling the truth? Did he were these brothers? Excuse me?
4:55
Speaker 1: Are you on a first name basis with Jesse Smilett?
5:00
Speaker 1: What do you expect him to come over for dinner
5:02
Speaker 1: after the trial? Well, he's a Hollywood celebrity talking to me,
5:05
Speaker 1: and you always feel like you're closed, like they're more
5:07
Speaker 1: than just I don't people on the TV and after
5:10
Speaker 1: watching and after him so would being a fan of it. Okay, see,
5:14
Speaker 1: I never saw an empire. Don't hate me. I was
5:17
Speaker 1: too busy working and raising my children, Alexis, But you
5:20
Speaker 1: go ahead. So he takes not judging the stand, and
5:24
Speaker 1: he explains his relationship with these brothers, because these are
5:27
Speaker 1: the two he has said that he was attacked by
5:30
Speaker 1: two men and that they were screaming this is mega
5:33
Speaker 1: country and calling him homophobic flirts. Well, it ends up
5:37
Speaker 1: it's people that he knows. In fact, it's people that
5:39
Speaker 1: he has given money to, and in fact it's people
5:42
Speaker 1: that he's been Wait a minute, Alexis, aren't you kind
5:44
Speaker 1: of burying the lead? It's not just the two Sandaro brothers.
5:50
Speaker 1: I'm they weren't just people that he knows. He claims
5:54
Speaker 1: to have gone to a gay bathhouse with one of
5:57
Speaker 1: them and had amerous activity. I guess I mean sex
6:04
Speaker 1: in a private room at a bathhouse, don't you think, Alexis,
6:08
Speaker 1: I mean you're the investigative reporter that he would recognize
6:11
Speaker 1: the guy he's been having sex with. Of course, the
6:14
Speaker 1: Sendaro brother denies it, But how can both of those
6:18
Speaker 1: be true? Well, he didn't recognize him. He said they
6:21
Speaker 1: were wearing masks, and in fact, he didn't even identify
6:24
Speaker 1: them both as black. When he was first being with cops.
6:27
Speaker 1: He thought perhaps one he had lighter skins than the
6:30
Speaker 1: police arrested. Didn't he say they were white wearing maga hats? Yes?
6:34
Speaker 1: But they okay? So Alex did he say as attackers
6:38
Speaker 1: were white or not? And it's but it's two thirty
6:40
Speaker 1: in the morning. They were wearing masks, but he said
6:43
Speaker 1: they were white. He did, Okay, you know what, I'm
6:47
Speaker 1: not getting a clear picture, Alexis, Let's just start with
6:52
Speaker 1: what did Jesse Smilette say on direct exam. He said
7:00
Speaker 1: that he was having a physical relationship with one of
7:04
Speaker 1: the brothers, that they had gone to gay bathhouses together.
7:06
Speaker 1: He was also saying that he hired these two brothers
7:10
Speaker 1: to train him to get in shape for a music video.
7:14
Speaker 1: He said that the director or the creator of the
7:16
Speaker 1: show Lee Daniels of Empire, had told him he was
7:19
Speaker 1: that he was thirty pounds overweight and he needed to
7:21
Speaker 1: lose weight. So he also said one of the brothers
7:24
Speaker 1: told him that he could get him a special weight
7:26
Speaker 1: loss pill or powder that could only come from Nigeria,
7:30
Speaker 1: where these brothers come from and that's why he was
7:33
Speaker 1: giving them money. That's why he had written them a
7:36
Speaker 1: check for thirty five hundred dollars. It was to train
7:38
Speaker 1: him to get him in shape, and that he was
7:40
Speaker 1: texting them to try to get this illegal Nigerian weight
7:44
Speaker 1: loss pill. And what pel is at an illegal Nigerian
7:48
Speaker 1: weight loss I thought it was some kind of an
7:50
Speaker 1: herbal supplement. Did he divolve that on the stand? I
7:54
Speaker 1: don't recall if he said the exact name of what
7:56
Speaker 1: it was called, but he said that they had told
7:57
Speaker 1: him that they could get him something that was only
7:59
Speaker 1: available in Nigeria, not in the United States that would
8:02
Speaker 1: help him lose weight very quickly. So there's a weight
8:06
Speaker 1: loss supplement that exists in Nigeria and we don't have
8:11
Speaker 1: it in the US. I thought we had every weight
8:13
Speaker 1: loss supplement known to man in the US. That's a
8:17
Speaker 1: whole other can of worms. How did Jesse Smollett explain
8:21
Speaker 1: the fact that when cops arrived at his apartment, he
8:28
Speaker 1: refused to give them his cell phone to see who
8:32
Speaker 1: he had been calling leading up to the attack. And
8:37
Speaker 1: isn't it true that one hour and approximately ten minutes
8:41
Speaker 1: before his hate crime attack, he was actually on the
8:45
Speaker 1: phone with a Sendaro brothers. He has not explained that,
8:49
Speaker 1: but he just said he didn't want to give the
8:51
Speaker 1: police his phone because he didn't want them to misconstrue
8:54
Speaker 1: anything that was in there that he had things to hide. Specifically,
8:57
Speaker 1: he has said that he likes to drive around and
9:01
Speaker 1: smoke a blunt, which is a joint, while he is filming,
9:05
Speaker 1: and he didn't want them to know about anything that
9:07
Speaker 1: he said about drugs, which was just marijuana. He said, Okay, again,
9:11
Speaker 1: please use proper names because there's a lot of heyes
9:15
Speaker 1: floating around in this case. Okay, you just said, mister
9:18
Speaker 1: Smollett said, you just said that Smelett would smoke a blunt. Okay.
9:23
Speaker 1: Isn't it also true? On the stand yesterday, Smlett admitted
9:29
Speaker 1: that he would use cocaine with Osdaro brothers. He claimed
9:32
Speaker 1: that he would use cocaine with him. Yeah, Crime stories
9:45
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Let's bring in the whole panel, Wendy Patrick.
9:49
Speaker 1: How is it possible that he said he didn't want
9:52
Speaker 1: the brothers to know he did blunt which is pot,
9:55
Speaker 1: but yet he did crack, He did cocaine with them.
9:57
Speaker 1: It isn't and that's one of the things that are
10:00
Speaker 1: going to be able to consider now that he took
10:02
Speaker 1: the stand and really laid it all out there. Remember,
10:05
Speaker 1: when a criminal defendant takes the stand, they are allowed
10:08
Speaker 1: to judge credibility as with any other witness. They're not
10:12
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing it if the defendant is just
10:14
Speaker 1: sitting at the table availing himself of the right. He
10:16
Speaker 1: remained silent. But once he's on there, everything he says
10:21
Speaker 1: is going to be cross examined. And that question you
10:23
Speaker 1: just asked, you bet, that's going to be asked back
10:25
Speaker 1: in the deliberation room as well. Guys, take a listen
10:27
Speaker 1: to Patrick Ellwood WG and Chicago Our Cut twenty nine,
10:32
Speaker 1: Almost three years after he reported being attacked amid homophobic
10:36
Speaker 1: and racial slurs, Actor Jesse Smolett took the stand in
10:40
Speaker 1: his own defense today. While being questioned by his attorney,
10:45
Speaker 1: Smolett described the early morning incident, saying he had gone
10:48
Speaker 1: out to Walgreens to buy eggs, but it was closed,
10:51
Speaker 1: so he opted for a subway sandwich store instead. On
10:54
Speaker 1: his way home, Smolette says he crossed paths with two
10:57
Speaker 1: men wearing ski masks, with one of them yelling and
11:00
Speaker 1: homophobic slurs and saying he was in Maga country while
11:04
Speaker 1: recognizing him as an actor on the TV show Empire,
11:09
Speaker 1: Smalllett says he threw a punch in his defense but
11:12
Speaker 1: doesn't know if it landed. He fell to the ground
11:15
Speaker 1: and was kicked. He testified that after the attack he
11:19
Speaker 1: didn't even know there was a noose around his neck
11:21
Speaker 1: because quote, I was getting my ass whooped une. Okay,
11:26
Speaker 1: that sounds fantastical to me, Doctor Angela Arnold psychiatrists could
11:30
Speaker 1: join us out of Atlanta. For a black male to
11:34
Speaker 1: have a noose tied around their neck, I mean that
11:39
Speaker 1: brings up so many horrible connotationial hate images and connotations.
11:47
Speaker 1: I would know if there was a news around my
11:49
Speaker 1: neck and I would get it off immediately. And then, Nancy,
11:52
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and learn to describe it as
11:55
Speaker 1: he did as a as a Looney Tunes like hit.
12:02
Speaker 1: That's very There's a word that we use, and the
12:04
Speaker 1: word is incongruent. Those two things are not congruent with
12:09
Speaker 1: each other. For someone to put a noose around a
12:13
Speaker 1: black man's neck, like you said, has so many connotations
12:16
Speaker 1: to it, so many racial connotations to it. But then
12:20
Speaker 1: to say it was a Looney Tunes like act, that
12:23
Speaker 1: those two things don't mesh with each other. Yeah, it
12:27
Speaker 1: goes to behavior on the stand. Professor Brian Levin, I
12:32
Speaker 1: find it very difficult to believe that a black male,
12:37
Speaker 1: familiar with racial hatred that has torn our country apart
12:41
Speaker 1: for so many years, to be so dismissive somebody wrapping
12:46
Speaker 1: a noose around your neck and then referring it to
12:49
Speaker 1: referring to it as a Looney Tunes event. Not only that,
12:54
Speaker 1: it would have been far more believable had he thrown
12:57
Speaker 1: that noose off his neck and ran from the scene.
13:01
Speaker 1: I mean, that would have been believable. But he looked.
13:05
Speaker 1: Here's the thing that I got to say. Here, he
13:09
Speaker 1: came up with an excuse for everything. They weren't good excuses.
13:12
Speaker 1: They were paper excuses that crumbled with a variety of
13:17
Speaker 1: facts that came out. He said, like his creative director
13:20
Speaker 1: or something told him to keep it on or something
13:22
Speaker 1: like that. His manager. Hold on, let me explore that
13:25
Speaker 1: Alexis terres Chuck. Isn't it true that on the stand
13:30
Speaker 1: Jesse Smillett, the Star of Empire, revealed once he was
13:34
Speaker 1: confronted with the photo the video surveillance of him coming
13:39
Speaker 1: into his high rise after the attack. The news was
13:44
Speaker 1: one way. When the cops got there, their body came
13:47
Speaker 1: reveals it's another way. And he has first said I
13:52
Speaker 1: never tampered with the rope. Then when shown the video comparison,
13:56
Speaker 1: he went, oh, yeah, I did take it up at
13:59
Speaker 1: my manager telling me to put it back on for
14:02
Speaker 1: when the cops got there. Didn't that happen? Elect Yes,
14:04
Speaker 1: And he said that that his manager told him don't
14:08
Speaker 1: hamper with evidence. So he retied it the way that
14:12
Speaker 1: it had been tied around him what he claimed. But
14:15
Speaker 1: it wasn't tied that way when he came into the
14:18
Speaker 1: lobby of his high rise. No, it was haying were
14:20
Speaker 1: draped around his neck. Professor Levin, go ahead, place. Look
14:25
Speaker 1: here's how I look at it. I could just take
14:27
Speaker 1: a macro step here because it looked at the various
14:30
Speaker 1: Q and A existed on cross. He came up with
14:37
Speaker 1: a little scrap of paper, if you will, for everything
14:40
Speaker 1: that came up and held it out as a shield. Right.
14:44
Speaker 1: But here's the thing where just bear with me on this. Okay,
14:48
Speaker 1: here's this thing where I think he's trying to throw
14:51
Speaker 1: that hail Mary pass and that is. Look, two things.
14:56
Speaker 1: One have the credibility of the brothers come into question,
15:01
Speaker 1: and there were some issues with that, right, But his
15:08
Speaker 1: main point was, Look, I don't trust the Chicago police
15:11
Speaker 1: and leaders should you, because I'm a social justice activist.
15:15
Speaker 1: And when you have fifty five percent of African Americans
15:19
Speaker 1: having concerns about calling the police, whether we think the
15:24
Speaker 1: evidence lines up, when you have that kind of landscape,
15:28
Speaker 1: if you can get to a juror to take that doubt,
15:33
Speaker 1: which to us looks incongruent and frankly preposterous for people
15:38
Speaker 1: who have viewed things or had experiences through a different lens. Right,
15:43
Speaker 1: remember the OJ case. Now, in that case, to spare
15:45
Speaker 1: with you for one second, in that case, we actually
15:48
Speaker 1: had a guy who was really discredited. Right, Remember the
15:51
Speaker 1: detective who said he never used the N word. Here,
15:53
Speaker 1: you don't have that, but you still have cases from
15:58
Speaker 1: the past where we had police lie in Chicago about
16:01
Speaker 1: the killing of a teenager. Right. So what I'm saying
16:04
Speaker 1: to is that's the past. In the words, he might
16:07
Speaker 1: get the goals might be blocked for all the other
16:11
Speaker 1: jurors except for that one that might have come in
16:16
Speaker 1: with the seat of doubt about the whole system, and
16:19
Speaker 1: that's what I think he's trying to exploit if he
16:22
Speaker 1: can for that possible juror or two who might be
16:26
Speaker 1: willing to look at it from that angle. If you
16:29
Speaker 1: look at just you know, the evidence out of a
16:31
Speaker 1: box and just didn't know the background, you go, this
16:35
Speaker 1: is preposterous. But as you know, and that's what I
16:37
Speaker 1: wanted to say. One of the exciting things about being
16:39
Speaker 1: on your show as a prosecutor, how do you handle
16:42
Speaker 1: that one? I think the way I would handle it
16:47
Speaker 1: is to point out the glaring inconsistency. Jesse Smillett a
16:54
Speaker 1: black mail in America, a gay black mail in America
16:57
Speaker 1: claiming that another gay black mail in America performed a
17:03
Speaker 1: hate crime on him, Smelett because he's st it's a
17:09
Speaker 1: gay black mail in America. That doesn't make sense. That
17:13
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense at all. Does it make sense to you,
17:18
Speaker 1: Professor Levin, that one gay black mail would attack another
17:22
Speaker 1: gay black mail. No, it's out of hate because he's
17:25
Speaker 1: a gay black mail. That doesn't make sense to me.
17:27
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense to me. But what I'm saying
17:31
Speaker 1: to you is I think that that prosecutor has to
17:34
Speaker 1: really hit that home over and over again, insistent in
17:37
Speaker 1: consistency one, in consistency two, in consistency three, to try
17:41
Speaker 1: and get over a presumption that may be in the
17:46
Speaker 1: heads of some of the jurors that the police in
17:49
Speaker 1: Chicago don't play it straight. I think you're right. He's
17:52
Speaker 1: got to fight it. He's got to fight that potential
17:56
Speaker 1: problem that he's got, you know. Back to you, Alexis Terrest,
18:00
Speaker 1: I understand that originally he claimed that he left his
18:04
Speaker 1: apartment to go and get a subway sandwich. Now we're
18:07
Speaker 1: hearing on the stand that he decided to go out
18:11
Speaker 1: and buy eggs at Walgreens because the Osnari brothers told
18:17
Speaker 1: him to for weight training purposes. And when Walgreens was closed,
18:23
Speaker 1: that's when the whole subway sandwich thing happened. This is
18:27
Speaker 1: the first time hearing about Walgreens, the eggs. The eggs
18:31
Speaker 1: and Walgreens trip is a new part of the story.
18:33
Speaker 1: We had not heard that before. And that's what he
18:35
Speaker 1: testified to do. He said he was trying to lose weight.
18:37
Speaker 1: That's why he called them. Because what has been established
18:41
Speaker 1: is that there is a phone call that he made
18:43
Speaker 1: about an hour and a half before the attack to
18:46
Speaker 1: the brothers. So this is his explanation for that. Instead
18:52
Speaker 1: of I called them to arrange to come beat me up. Okay,
18:55
Speaker 1: in an hour and a half, we're going to meet
18:56
Speaker 1: on the corner of the street, it was Hey, guys,
18:59
Speaker 1: that's true. Well, I guess at that point, at twelve
19:01
Speaker 1: to thirty in the night, I'm starving. What could I
19:03
Speaker 1: eat that would make me lose weight? Okay? The obvious
19:06
Speaker 1: answer is nothing. Prime Stories with Nancy Grace to you.
19:25
Speaker 1: Joseph S. Goot Morgan, Professor Forensics, There are so many
19:29
Speaker 1: forensics issues. First of all, all the video, I think
19:34
Speaker 1: Levin Professor Brian Levin is right. In order to tackle
19:39
Speaker 1: to surmount any type of fear or prejudice toward the police,
19:46
Speaker 1: you've got to point out to this jury all of
19:49
Speaker 1: Smolett's inconsistencies. And I would start with the video and
19:54
Speaker 1: I'll circle back to the eggs. But the video showing
19:58
Speaker 1: not only away his rope had been adjusted and tied
20:02
Speaker 1: around his neck more like a noose for when the
20:06
Speaker 1: cops got there, but also the video of Smelette doing
20:10
Speaker 1: a dry run with Osandaro brothers in the days leading
20:16
Speaker 1: up to the attack. What about that video Joe Scott. Yeah,
20:20
Speaker 1: and you're you know what you're what you're proposing is
20:22
Speaker 1: that the jury, uh, you know, you can't believe you're
20:25
Speaker 1: lying eyes. It's it's something that that is concrete relative
20:31
Speaker 1: to visual evidence, which is very important in a case
20:34
Speaker 1: like this where he is saying absolutely one thing and
20:38
Speaker 1: the video evidence defeats it relative to what the jury
20:43
Speaker 1: is viewing before them. How do you diminish that in
20:46
Speaker 1: any way? Are you going to take the extra step
20:48
Speaker 1: now as a defense and say, well, well, all of
20:51
Speaker 1: this video, you know, don't believe it. It was all
20:53
Speaker 1: you know, it's all fantastical. It's it's been it's been manipulated,
20:57
Speaker 1: and that can be implied. They can imply anything that
20:59
Speaker 1: they want to, because remember, at the end of the day,
21:01
Speaker 1: all they're trying to do is find one jury member
21:04
Speaker 1: there that they can implant reasonable doubting. But with physical
21:07
Speaker 1: evidence like that, you know, you mentioned the rope as well,
21:10
Speaker 1: with it being manipulated. And this is another thing that's
21:13
Speaker 1: so super bizarre here is when you begin to think
21:16
Speaker 1: about his manager telling him that he needs to take
21:19
Speaker 1: this critical piece of evidence and place it back around
21:22
Speaker 1: his neck and This goes to something that people in
21:25
Speaker 1: Hollywood are always talking about the optics of things. You know,
21:28
Speaker 1: how do they appear? Or we want to be a
21:30
Speaker 1: master thespian here and present for the cops as some
21:34
Speaker 1: kind of sympathetic character as they walk through the door.
21:38
Speaker 1: And thing bit it, Nancy, is that there are so
21:41
Speaker 1: many people that surround this environment. They're endearing so much
21:45
Speaker 1: violence at the hands of one another and and other people.
21:49
Speaker 1: And this guy, as doctor Levin had pointed out, is
21:52
Speaker 1: using these weak, weak things that he's putting forth as
21:58
Speaker 1: a shield and it's it's horre. Both listen to Alexis Dusha.
22:02
Speaker 1: It comes out that the jury has seen video of
22:06
Speaker 1: Jesse Smolett, the Empire star, walking around the area where
22:11
Speaker 1: the attack occurred on Jan twenty seven. The attack occurred
22:17
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours on Jan twenty nine, so
22:21
Speaker 1: less than forty eight hours before the so called hate
22:25
Speaker 1: crime attack occurred. There is video a Smlett walking in
22:30
Speaker 1: the same spot with Osandaro brothers doing a dry run
22:35
Speaker 1: of the attack. How do you get around that, Well,
22:37
Speaker 1: it is his neighborhood, so he lives there with that.
22:40
Speaker 1: So this is you know, anybody would take a stroll
22:42
Speaker 1: although it is absolutely freezing cold in Chicago. But if
22:46
Speaker 1: you live in Chicago, you're fine walking around Chicago when
22:48
Speaker 1: it is freezing cold. But the police, he said that
22:52
Speaker 1: he testified. Smilett testified on the stand that he would
22:55
Speaker 1: often get in his car with one or two of
22:59
Speaker 1: the brothers and dry around and smoke marijuana. He would
23:03
Speaker 1: do that, and that seemed to be what he was
23:06
Speaker 1: saying he was doing two days before that that was
23:08
Speaker 1: something they'd always done in the past, and it was
23:10
Speaker 1: just a way that they chilled. They were not driving.
23:12
Speaker 1: They were walking near the scene of the alleged attack
23:16
Speaker 1: with the two Osandaro brothers, and the brothers paid a
23:21
Speaker 1: bill at a beauty supply for some of They had
23:26
Speaker 1: to get a rope, they had to get masks, they
23:30
Speaker 1: got gloves somewhere. They got bleached, they say, with one
23:34
Speaker 1: hundred dollars Bill Smolett gave them. And there's a video
23:38
Speaker 1: of them doing that. Guys, take a listen to our
23:41
Speaker 1: cut thirty one. The actor described as attacker saying it
23:45
Speaker 1: felt like something out of a Looney Tunes Adventures. It
23:48
Speaker 1: felt like someone massive coming up to me, not enough
23:50
Speaker 1: time to think. This person felt significantly larger than me,
23:54
Speaker 1: dressed in dark clothes a ski mask. Smolett told the
23:57
Speaker 1: jury he fought back, saying quote, I would like to
23:59
Speaker 1: think I ended a punch. I know I certainly threw one.
24:02
Speaker 1: Smolette was asked why he never called police. He responded,
24:05
Speaker 1: I'm a black man in America. I don't trust police.
24:08
Speaker 1: Smilette said after a threatening letter was sent to him
24:11
Speaker 1: at the Empire Studio, executives got him security and took
24:14
Speaker 1: the threat seriously. A counter to the special prosecutors claimed
24:18
Speaker 1: that Smilette planned the attack because he was unhappy with
24:20
Speaker 1: the response the letter received. I'm ready to do what
24:23
Speaker 1: I gotta do. I'm ready to do what I gotta do.
24:27
Speaker 1: Alexa Streschuk tell me about the death threat or the
24:31
Speaker 1: hate mail that Smolette got at the Empire Studios, and
24:36
Speaker 1: I find it more than coincidental that this letter exists,
24:42
Speaker 1: whether Smilette wrote it to himself or not. And the
24:45
Speaker 1: Osendaro brothers say Smolette wanted to do this attack because
24:50
Speaker 1: his studio did not take the hate mail seriously, and
24:53
Speaker 1: he wanted to bring attention to himself to get more
24:57
Speaker 1: money in his next contract. So that's the Osendara brothers
25:01
Speaker 1: story and the Hey mail exists, and the studio was
25:07
Speaker 1: told about the Hey mail, and the studio did not
25:10
Speaker 1: give him a race one that he wanted. Anyway, what
25:13
Speaker 1: about it that seems to corroborate what the Osdara brothers
25:16
Speaker 1: are saying. So the studio did take it seriously so
25:20
Speaker 1: that it was a picture of a man with a
25:22
Speaker 1: new surround or a person event with a staund It
25:26
Speaker 1: was a stake figure and with a new surround their necks.
25:28
Speaker 1: So this thing, you know, one of the worst images
25:31
Speaker 1: in out there. But the studio offered to give Smollette security.
25:36
Speaker 1: They were worried about him. They said, we will provide
25:39
Speaker 1: security for you. He sat on the scan. I didn't
25:41
Speaker 1: want their security because my schedule during the day is
25:45
Speaker 1: I like, I come to work in the morning and
25:46
Speaker 1: then at lunchtime I leave, I drive around the neighborhood,
25:49
Speaker 1: I smoke marijuana and then I don't want those security
25:52
Speaker 1: to see that. So he then he says the brothers
25:56
Speaker 1: begged him to let them be his security, and he
26:00
Speaker 1: didn't want them to be security either. So that's part
26:03
Speaker 1: of his defense that they wanted to work for him,
26:06
Speaker 1: and that's maybe why they attacked him as well, because
26:09
Speaker 1: he wouldn't hire them as security. Hey, Nancy, this is Wendy.
26:12
Speaker 1: This is one of the things we're all talking about
26:14
Speaker 1: is once he's taken the stand, it's reasonable interpretations of
26:17
Speaker 1: the evidence. What we're establishing is that the evidence is
26:20
Speaker 1: not consistent with mister Smollett's testimony. It's more consistent as
26:24
Speaker 1: it's coming out and as we're all rehashing it here
26:26
Speaker 1: with what the brothers are saying, and when the jury
26:29
Speaker 1: considers that, that's going to be the question. You know,
26:31
Speaker 1: sometimes actors over or underestimate their ability to narrate events.
26:37
Speaker 1: We've seen that in several high profile trials involving Hollywood
26:40
Speaker 1: actors that are either very good at and very persuasive
26:44
Speaker 1: or not, but they think they are. And sometimes we
26:46
Speaker 1: wonder whether that's why someone took the stand. But his
26:49
Speaker 1: interpretation of the evidence is not consistent with all of
26:53
Speaker 1: the other circumstances that we're discussing. It is, including this
26:57
Speaker 1: hate mail that alexis just so eloquently put out there.
27:01
Speaker 1: The way that was described is consistent with what the
27:04
Speaker 1: brother said, So it might just come down to that,
27:07
Speaker 1: to the corroboration and the consistency. Guys, take a listen
27:10
Speaker 1: to our cut thirty three. This is Charlie Demarts, CBS
27:12
Speaker 1: News Chicago. Similette said after a threatening letter was sent
27:16
Speaker 1: to him at the Empire Studio, executives got him security
27:19
Speaker 1: and took the threat seriously. A counter to the special
27:22
Speaker 1: prosecutors claimed that Smilette planned the attack because he was
27:25
Speaker 1: unhappy with the response that letter received. The actor also
27:29
Speaker 1: told the jury that he would do drugs with abel Osandaro,
27:32
Speaker 1: and the two head of physical relationship. He said during
27:35
Speaker 1: a bathhouse encounter there was some touching. Abel denies those claims.
27:41
Speaker 1: Abel denies those claims. So it's boiling down to a
27:45
Speaker 1: he say, they say, let's talk about the various inconsistencies,
27:51
Speaker 1: because I think Professor Brian Levin is correct. The only
27:54
Speaker 1: way the state's going to win this case is if
27:56
Speaker 1: they show the jury very clearly a visual deer enclosing
28:02
Speaker 1: arguments as they verbally argue those inconsistencies at the same time,
28:08
Speaker 1: a double whammy. They see it, they read it, and
28:10
Speaker 1: they hear it when they go back to that jury
28:12
Speaker 1: deliberation room. That's what they're going to be thinking about.
28:15
Speaker 1: The inconsistencies. Just got Morgan, Professor Forensics, which inconsistencies stand
28:22
Speaker 1: out the most to you? Well, I think that what
28:25
Speaker 1: we have to consider here. I think that one of
28:27
Speaker 1: the key pieces here is this letter Nancy. It was
28:31
Speaker 1: essentially constructed as a result of magazine cutouts, if you will.
28:35
Speaker 1: And you know the Postal the US Postal Inspectors who
28:38
Speaker 1: are very good at this sort of thing, as well
28:42
Speaker 1: as the FBI probably their Question Documents section really got
28:46
Speaker 1: on this thing, and these are This is different than
28:49
Speaker 1: examining handwriting, for instance. This actually comes into where you're
28:54
Speaker 1: having to examine the margins of these cutouts and trying
28:57
Speaker 1: to match them up, either include them or exclude them
29:01
Speaker 1: as part of evidence. But I think it goes to
29:03
Speaker 1: a bigger point here where why would this one individual
29:08
Speaker 1: out of all the individuals in Hollywood receive a particular
29:12
Speaker 1: letter like this? Does he does? He drag up that
29:16
Speaker 1: much hatred out there among the American public that he
29:20
Speaker 1: is going to be targeted. And so this evidence that
29:23
Speaker 1: they're going to submit and that they're going to be
29:24
Speaker 1: discussing in trial, the jury is going to examine that,
29:28
Speaker 1: and they're thinking, you know, look, out of all the people.
29:30
Speaker 1: You know, why would he be targeted? Why is he
29:32
Speaker 1: such a polarizing figure in this? And I just I
29:35
Speaker 1: don't see it. I don't see it holding water, you know,
29:38
Speaker 1: moving forward, And then you throw the video evidence in here.
29:42
Speaker 1: And to Alexis's point relative to people in Chicago being
29:47
Speaker 1: used to the cold, yeah, they are used to the cold,
29:49
Speaker 1: being out walking around, but they also are aware of
29:52
Speaker 1: how deadly the cold is. We're talking about temperatures, Nancy,
29:56
Speaker 1: that are sub teens at this point. The people in
29:59
Speaker 1: Chicago are smart enough to know to stay indoors. You
30:01
Speaker 1: don't go out looking for subway sandwiches and eggs and
30:04
Speaker 1: whatever in the hell else he's looking for. It just
30:07
Speaker 1: it doesn't marry up the physical evidence that they have
30:10
Speaker 1: and all of the circumstantial evidence crime stories with Nancy
30:25
Speaker 1: Grace incident true. Alexis terres chuck that regarding this hate
30:31
Speaker 1: mail Jesse Smilett claims he got at the Empire Studios,
30:35
Speaker 1: the Postal Inspection Service closes their case and to Jesse
30:42
Speaker 1: Smilette's alleged hate mail, they determined that the hate mail,
30:51
Speaker 1: the Return of Jess was simply scrawled MAGA, never contained
30:55
Speaker 1: any rising or any other dangerous outer. They said, as
31:01
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, it's much more likely that whoever
31:05
Speaker 1: opened the letter, Jesse Smilett, had taken a tail on
31:08
Speaker 1: all at some point. That's what they said. The postal service,
31:12
Speaker 1: you think they got a dog in the fight. They
31:14
Speaker 1: don't care. They're just trying to deliver the mail for
31:16
Speaker 1: peace sake, so they couldn't care less. And this was
31:19
Speaker 1: their opinion. They closed the case. They said, at most
31:24
Speaker 1: Smilett took a tail and all before he opened the letter. Yes, correct,
31:27
Speaker 1: they did close the case. But the studio did take
31:30
Speaker 1: it seriously. And also with regard to his wile Are
31:33
Speaker 1: you saying that what difference does it make? Because he
31:36
Speaker 1: has been say so, the studio tickets seriously. They offered
31:39
Speaker 1: him security. He turned down the security. But then he's
31:42
Speaker 1: saying the brothers offered to be his security. Like it
31:45
Speaker 1: just isn't connecting, man, Now, I get it. So they
31:50
Speaker 1: offered him security for free, he turned that down. But
31:55
Speaker 1: yet he was talking to the brothers about being his bodyguards. See,
31:58
Speaker 1: I thought the brothers, he's I mean, their brothers wanted
32:00
Speaker 1: to be a bodyguard, but that he wasn't going to
32:03
Speaker 1: hire them. And I just did get to quick a
32:05
Speaker 1: quick point champion. Okay, Now, if the letter said maga,
32:09
Speaker 1: first of all, I think that a celebrity could in fact,
32:14
Speaker 1: he even won. That's not like total a A list
32:17
Speaker 1: right could get a hate mail. But here's this thing,
32:19
Speaker 1: what do we all get hate mail? Lemon? I got it.
32:24
Speaker 1: Why don't you get online? I bet you've got some
32:26
Speaker 1: hate mail online? I get some routinely. Yeah, I'll get it.
32:31
Speaker 1: In the letter though, it says magot. Just bear with
32:34
Speaker 1: me though, because we're talking about kinds of forensic let's
32:36
Speaker 1: look at it, just a slightly nuanced version here. Though,
32:41
Speaker 1: he gets the letter stick figure noose and it says maga. Okay,
32:46
Speaker 1: then he's attacked by folks who have a noose and
32:50
Speaker 1: Maga hats at like two in the morning when it's freezing.
32:55
Speaker 1: For me, that's just a bridge too far. Had it
32:57
Speaker 1: just been a letter that said I hate you, you're
33:01
Speaker 1: you know hey, you die right? But it's too close together.
33:06
Speaker 1: It's like the dog. It's too much of a coincidence.
33:10
Speaker 1: The dog gave my homework and look through a real
33:12
Speaker 1: bite marks. You see what I'm saying. It's too it's
33:15
Speaker 1: too consistent. So what I'm saying in most of the
33:18
Speaker 1: stuff that we're just seeing, you were real inconsistencies. The
33:22
Speaker 1: one place where we see a consistency a letter and
33:26
Speaker 1: then at like two in the morning or one in
33:28
Speaker 1: the morning, when it's freezing, some folks with a nise
33:31
Speaker 1: and Maga hats. It just sounds too staged because it is.
33:36
Speaker 1: And it turns out the attackers are people you've been
33:39
Speaker 1: paying that you do a drive run with too, about
33:42
Speaker 1: thirty six hours before the attack. Hey, you know what
33:45
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk about that. They
33:47
Speaker 1: likelihood that it would be anybody else beside Smellette. The letter,
33:53
Speaker 1: as eleven points out, stick figure with a nice from
33:58
Speaker 1: MAGA and then Sudley his two friends and he's had
34:03
Speaker 1: sex encounters with according to him, attack him, put a
34:08
Speaker 1: news around his neck and he climbs. They they're yelling
34:12
Speaker 1: this is a mega country and wearing a MAGA hat.
34:14
Speaker 1: But because one quicktion or that even if that letter
34:18
Speaker 1: was legitimately a hate mongering letter from someone who hated him, right,
34:24
Speaker 1: he still played it with allegedly he still allegedly played
34:29
Speaker 1: that script. So even if that letter was legitimately a
34:33
Speaker 1: threatening letter, the fact that he then ran with it
34:37
Speaker 1: as kind of the script for the play that that
34:39
Speaker 1: actually petered out. I think it's damny either way. It's
34:46
Speaker 1: whether he whether he made the letter up himself, okay,
34:50
Speaker 1: but even if he didn't, he still could have orchestrated
34:53
Speaker 1: it around that letter to make it more believable. Either way,
34:56
Speaker 1: I think that's a dead end. Again. I just don't
35:00
Speaker 1: see how it can get around the dry run caught
35:02
Speaker 1: on video. I asked Joseph jo Scott Morgan what he
35:07
Speaker 1: thought was the most serious evidence, and I want to
35:11
Speaker 1: talk to you guys about what you think is the
35:13
Speaker 1: most serious inconsistency. What about it? Wendy Patrick, Nancy, I
35:18
Speaker 1: think the most serious inconsistency is all about how this
35:23
Speaker 1: actually came about in terms of what he was doing
35:25
Speaker 1: out on the street, because everything else stems from that.
35:29
Speaker 1: When you look at the motivation he would have had
35:30
Speaker 1: for making this up, that's one thing you can imagine
35:33
Speaker 1: if the career was boiling, wanted to draw attention, never
35:36
Speaker 1: thought it would go to the police. They never thought
35:38
Speaker 1: it would go to the police. Component explains so much
35:41
Speaker 1: on either side. It would explain why they were willing
35:43
Speaker 1: to take risks, why they were willing to have their
35:46
Speaker 1: stories diverged. Why but he didn't get it together. If
35:48
Speaker 1: you never expect to have anybody cross examining your statement,
35:52
Speaker 1: you're not going to take those types of precautions. So
35:55
Speaker 1: if you look at the underlying motivation behind the act,
35:58
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if they don't hit that hard
36:00
Speaker 1: con a closing argument. Whether the prosecutor says, this is
36:03
Speaker 1: why you have all those blue ends because nobody accepted
36:06
Speaker 1: us to have tied them up the way that we did,
36:08
Speaker 1: That's what I think this case is going to come
36:10
Speaker 1: down to, Doctor Angie Arnold. I find the subway sandwich
36:14
Speaker 1: slash Walgreens argument from a strictly personal point of view,
36:19
Speaker 1: to be the least believable and the dry run. So
36:23
Speaker 1: he's having sex encounters with one of the brothers that
36:27
Speaker 1: deny it and a bathhouse, and he's with them thirty
36:31
Speaker 1: six hours before, and he's on the phone with them
36:34
Speaker 1: an hour and ten minutes before they attack him, yet
36:38
Speaker 1: he doesn't recognize them. There's that, and then the going
36:41
Speaker 1: out at two am for a subway sandwich. That's what
36:45
Speaker 1: he said to start with. He never mentioned Walgreens until now.
36:49
Speaker 1: That's what he told the cops he went out at
36:52
Speaker 1: two A. I mean, doctor, Angie, what do you do
36:54
Speaker 1: it too am when you're hungry? Well, I don't wake
36:57
Speaker 1: up at two am, but let's just pretend you did it.
37:00
Speaker 1: I would go down to my kitchen and grab something
37:03
Speaker 1: such as, um, chocolate I mean, I mean, or soup
37:10
Speaker 1: or a ballar cereal. What would you do too? I
37:13
Speaker 1: am hungry. This happened to me the other day. I
37:17
Speaker 1: didn't need a lot the room the day, went downstairs,
37:19
Speaker 1: rumming through the refrigerator and ate what was kind of there?
37:21
Speaker 1: An edible, a little a little cheese wrap with some stuff,
37:26
Speaker 1: and am a can of soup? Wendy, what about it?
37:30
Speaker 1: You know, Nancy, I'm just getting up at two am,
37:32
Speaker 1: as you and Jackie know, because I do so much
37:34
Speaker 1: East Coast media in the morning. But one thing I
37:36
Speaker 1: wanted to point out is I would make sure my
37:38
Speaker 1: my fridge is stocked, and I certainly wouldn't go out
37:40
Speaker 1: and polar vortex. That was also unbelievable to me. But
37:43
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that mister Smollette has tried
37:46
Speaker 1: to turn around by basically saying, look, I'm not like
37:49
Speaker 1: I'm trying to evade the question of what you ate
37:51
Speaker 1: it two am? Well, I usually just have coffee at
37:54
Speaker 1: two am because I've just awoken. So my cereal comes
37:58
Speaker 1: at cereals thirty and it's already in my fridge or
38:03
Speaker 1: in my cupboard. I would never go out in the
38:05
Speaker 1: middle of the night to forage for food. Just Scott,
38:08
Speaker 1: what about it? Dark chocolate and cheese, man, basically a
38:13
Speaker 1: garbage gut. Whatever I can find, I'll just eat it,
38:16
Speaker 1: even it's like if it's really old, if it's expired,
38:20
Speaker 1: a piece of cheese and glass and milk, whatever's left
38:23
Speaker 1: over from sumer Alexis, what what is it? What's the
38:26
Speaker 1: go to two am rinella bar? We have lots, of course,
38:29
Speaker 1: you're all California healthy best, You're a great cook, so
38:35
Speaker 1: you have better options to choose from than the rest
38:37
Speaker 1: of us. I mean this whole going out and literally,
38:40
Speaker 1: when when Wendy Patrick said a polar vortex, there was
38:44
Speaker 1: a polar vortex, it was sub zero tempts and Alexis,
38:50
Speaker 1: isn't it correct that this whole Walgreen buying eggs at
38:53
Speaker 1: Walgreen story just came up. I wouldn't think of going
38:56
Speaker 1: to buy eggs at Walgreens. I'd go to a grocery
38:58
Speaker 1: store for eggs. But what ever, didn't that just happen
39:01
Speaker 1: on the stand, it did, which makes me think that
39:04
Speaker 1: the prosecutors perhaps can go back to although that it's
39:06
Speaker 1: been a couple of years now to get video evidence,
39:09
Speaker 1: but there's no video evidence of this, and perhaps the
39:11
Speaker 1: defense at the time would have gotten the video evidence
39:14
Speaker 1: to say, look, here he's in Walgreen because everything else
39:18
Speaker 1: has been on video and it was closed and he
39:20
Speaker 1: walked there first. Guys, we're attacking inconsistencies in Smilett's story.
39:26
Speaker 1: I wonder if the jury is going to see past
39:31
Speaker 1: all of the claims Smolette is making. We'll see. We
39:34
Speaker 1: wait as justice unfolds. You see Grace crime story signing
39:38
Speaker 1: off good bye friend.