CHICAGO — A federal judge in Chicago ruled Friday that comments made by Jussie Smollett’s attorney on national television three years ago that two Black brothers might have attacked the actor while in “whiteface” could be construed as defamation.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland allows the defamation lawsuit filed by Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo to continue against Tina Glandian, Smollett’s Los Angeles-based attorney who made the controversial comments in an interview on the “Today” show on March 28, 2019, a few days after the initial charges against Smollett had been dropped.
In her ruling, Rowland dismissed all other counts brought against Glandian’s firm, Geragos & Geragos.
The lawsuit alleged that in the aftermath of the controversial dismissal of Smollett’s criminal case by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office, which was garnering headlines around the world, the former “Empire” actor’s high-profile legal team continued to smear the Osundairo brothers on TV and in podcast interviews.
The concerted media blitz was a blatant effort to paint the brothers not only as homophobic, racist, and violent, but guilty of the attack in the first place, the suit alleged.
The suit focused in particular on one exchange in Glandian’s “Today” show interview, when she was asked how it could be possible that Smollett believed his attackers were pale skinned given the Osundiaro brothers’ dark complexion.
“Well, you know, I mean, I think there’s—obviously, you can disguise that,” Glandian said in the interview. “You could put makeup on.”
Glandian went on to call out Chicago police for allegedly failing to investigate an online video showing one of the Osundairo brothers “in whiteface doing a Joker monologue with white makeup on.”
“And so it’s not—it’s not implausible,” Glandian said.
In her ruling, Rowland wrote that Glandian’s allegation could legally be construed as an attempt “to dispel the inconsistency in Smollett’s story (the attackers had light skin) and bolster her contention that the plaintiffs (who are not light skinned) were Smollett’s attackers.”
“Taken in context, Glandian was asserting plaintiffs’ involvement in a racially motivated attack,” Rowland wrote. “Explaining that the attackers were white, read in context, adds the implication that the attack was a hate crime.”
The ruling clears the defamation count against Glandian to possibly go to trial before a jury.
Glandian could not immediately be reached for comment. She and her law firm have previously denied the allegations, ridiculing the “so-called lawsuit” as “a desperate attempt for (the Osundairo brothers) to stay relevant and further profit from an attack they admit they perpetrated.
Smollett, meanwhile, was convicted of low-level felonies in December when a jury found that he had lied to police about being the victim of a hate crime attack. Prosecutors argued at sentencing that he denigrated real victims of hate crimes when he hired the Osundairo brothers to stage a phony assault on himself involving racial slurs, homophobic epithets and a makeshift noose.
Smollett was sentenced last week to 30 months of probation, with the first 150 days to be served in Cook County Jail. In addition, he must pay a $25,000 fine as well as $120,106 in restitution — the amount of restitution the city sought to pay for its overtime costs investigating the case, minus the $10,000 Smollett forfeited to the city when his first case was dropped.
The Illinois Appellate Court has since granted Smollett’s motion to be released on bond pending appeal, and he walked out of Cook County Jail on Wednesday after spending about a week in custody.
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