On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that the hate crime hoax trial of "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett took a bizarre turn after his defense counsel accused the presiding judge of "lunging" and "snarling" at her.
"The confrontation kicked off as defense attorney Tamara Walker attempted to question star prosecution witness Olabinjo Osundairo, who testified earlier on Thursday that Smollett had paid him to 'fake beat him up,'" reported A. J. MacDougall. "As Walker pressed Osundairo on homophobic language in his past tweets, Judge James Linn tried to expedite the line of inquiry, calling the subject 'collateral.' Walker then asked for a sidebar. After the jury had been sent out of the room, Walker requested a mistrial, in part over the word of the word 'collateral' since, she said, demonstrating Ola's homophobia is central to their defense. She then remarked to the judge: 'You did physically lunge at me.'"
She also accused Judge Linn of making "snarling faces."
According to the report, Judge Linn denied all of these accusations and said, "There’s no mistrial here… Frankly, I’m stunned."
Smollett is on trial for over a dozen felony charges stemming from an incident that occurred in 2019. Smollett, who is Black and openly gay, claimed to have been the victim of a hate crime at the hands of two Trump supporters, who beat him, put a noose around his neck, and doused him in a chemical substance.
Inconsistencies in his story immediately emerged, and the Chicago Police assert the entire incident was orchestrated by Smollett, who hired his supposed attackers.
