CHICAGO (Reuters) — Actor Jussie Smollett, one particular-time star of the Tv set drama “Empire,” was discovered guilty on Thursday of staging a loathe crime towards himself in what prosecutors reported was a bid to attain sympathy and strengthen his career.

Prosecutors reported Smollett, who is Black and gay, lied to police when he instructed them that he was accosted on a darkish Chicago avenue by two masked strangers in January 2019.

The actor faces a highest sentence of a few years in prison for every single count when he is sentenced, whilst he could be offered probation.

The Cook County Circuit Court docket jury, which deliberated for 9 hrs, found Smollett, 39, guilty of five of the 6 felony disorderly conduct counts he faced, one for each individual time he was accused of lying to law enforcement.

Describing Smollett’s account of what occurred as “preposterous,” distinctive prosecutor Dan Webb told reporters following the verdict that “Mr. Smollett would not have dropped this situation as he did nowadays except the jury uncovered that he lied to them.”

Smollett’s direct protection lawyer, Nenye Uche, claimed that his shopper was “an innocent person” who was self-confident he would see the guilty verdicts overturned on appeal.

“I do not for 1 next imagine that justice was carried out these days,” Uche said outdoors courtroom, including that the protection was going through an uphill battle simply because “Jussie was currently experimented with and convicted in the media.”

Smollett left the courthouse with no talking to reporters and surrounded by an entourage.

Smollett claimed the attackers threw a noose all around his neck and poured chemicals on him even though yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of help for previous President Donald Trump.

Police arrested the actor a month afterwards, stating that he paid out two brothers $3,500 to stage the attack in an energy to elevate his clearly show-business enterprise profile. He sooner or later pleaded not guilty to six counts of felony disorderly carry out.

The two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, testified that Smollett paid them to take part in a hoax and instructed them how to assault him. For the duration of the trial, the actor took the…