Jussie Smollett Sentencing: Black Lives Matter Writes Letter Asking for Leniency

(INSET: Jussie Smollett) Melina Abdullah, civic leader and co-founder of the Black Lives M
Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty, Cassella-Pool/Getty

The Marxist political organization Black Lives Matter wrote a letter on behalf of hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett, asking Cook County Judge James Linn for leniency when sentencing the disgraced actor on Thursday.

“Black Lives Matter stands in strong support of an alternative-to-incarceration sentence for Jussie Smollett,” read the letter, submitted by the organization and attributed to Melina Abdullah, the organization’s Grassroots Director.

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Abdullah (pictured, left), a rabid defund the police activist and Professor of Pan-African Studies for California State University, has previously expressed her support for Smollett, referring to the trial as a “white supremacist charade” in December 2021.

The BLM leader is not the only one asking the judge for leniency in Smollett’s hate crime hoax case.

Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson and his wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson have also written a letter on behalf of the actor, asking Judge Linn Linn for leniency.

“It is with the respect of knowing this, that I humbly implore you to please find an alternative to incarceration for Jussie Smollett,” the Jacksons wrote in their letter.

Smollett is set to be sentenced in a Chicago court on Thursday, three months after he was found guilty of five counts of felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report after he hired two brothers from Nigeria to stage the fake hate crime.

The actor had claimed he was physically attacked by two men wearing MAGA hats who put a rope around his neck, poured bleach on him, and shouted racial and homophobic slurs at him, before eventually yelling, “This is MAGA country!” — referring to former President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan.

On Thursday, Smollett arrived late to his own sentencing, with his bodyguards getting physically “violent” with reporters on their way into the courthouse, and knocking one photographer to the ground.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

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