A ruling by a federal judge Friday will allow the star witnesses in Jussie Smollett’s trial for staging a hoax hate crime to sue Smollett’s lawyers for defamation.
Brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo claim that Smollett attorney Tina Glandian smeared the Chicago-based bodybuilders on national TV and on podcasts in the days after charges against Smollett initially were dropped by prosecutors in 2019, assailing the pair as liars and suggesting they wore “whiteface” makeup to pose as racist, homophobic attackers.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland comes just days after Smollett walked out of the Cook County Jail to await the outcome of an appeal of his conviction for staging the attack.
Rowland dismissed several of the claims the brothers made over specific statements by Glandian, but found that they could have been defamed by the “whiteface” remark, which implicated them in committing a hate crime.
With the case set to proceed, the Osundairos’ legal team expects to subpoena both Glandian and Smollett for depositions, attorney Gregory Kulis said.
“There are a few questions I would like to ask of Mr. Smollett,” Kulis said Friday.
Glandian’s attorney Brendan Healey called the lawsuit frivolous, noting that previous rulings had dismissed all claims against Glandian’s partner, Mark Geragos and his firm.
“Once again, the court has rejected and dismissed this frivolous lawsuit against the Geragos firm and Mark Geragos,” Healey wrote in an email to the Chicago Sun-Times. “We are confident that the single remaining allegation reflecting Ms. Glandian’s opinion will be dismissed in due course.”
At issue are statements Glandian made during an interview on the “Today Show” just days after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office made the bombshell announcement that it would dismiss all charges against Smollett, with the actor having performed a few hours of community service and forfeiting his $10,000 bond.
Explaining how Smollett might have mistaken the Osundairo brothers, who are Black, for white men during the attack, Glandian proposed that they could have worn makeup, and noted that she had found video online of the brothers “in whiteface doing a Joker monologue with white makeup on.”
“And so it’s not — it’s not implausible,” Glandian said in the interview.
“Taken in context, Glandian was asserting plaintiffs’ involvement in a racially motivated attack,” Rowland wrote in her decision. “Explaining that the attackers were white, read in context, adds the implication that the attack was a hate crime.”
The Osundairos’ confession that they had been paid by Smollett to stage the attack led to the actor’s arrest for making false statements to police when he reported that he’d been assaulted by two men near his Streeterville home.
Smollett claimed that his attackers were wearing ski masks, and that he was able to see that at least one of them was white. The Osundairo brothers, who had worked with Smollett as bodybuilding coaches and on the “Empire” set, are Black.
At Smollett’s trial, the Osundairos provided key testimony against the actor, stating that he approached Abimbola about faking the hate crime attack and paid him $3,500. Smollett said it was payment for bodybuilding coaching.
A previous ruling had thrown out claims of defamation against Glandian’s partner, attorney Mark Geragos, who discussed the case on a podcast alongside Glandian.
Glandian stayed on as Smollett’s lawyer after Special Prosecutor Dan Webb was appointed to re-investigate the case against Smollett, and a year later again charged the actor for faking the attack.
Glandian was on the trial team last year, when Smollett was found guilty on five of six counts of making false statements to police as they investigated the attack.
The actor was sentenced last week to 30 months of probation, with the first five months to be spent in the Cook County Jail — but Smollett was released Wednesday to await the outcome of an appeal of his conviction.
