Chicago State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has received death threats after her office’s abrupt decision to drop the charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Foxx’s chief of staff, Jennifer Ballard Croft, confirmed Monday that Foxx’s “physical safety” has been threatened in the wake of the Smollett case. Investigators with the state’s attorney’s office’s Investigations Bureau and Executive Protection Unit have been alerted to the threats. The decision to drop the charges against Smollett sparked protests from the Chicago community, and led two top prosecutors in Foxx’s office to resign. Foxx reportedly told her top deputy that Smollett was just a “washed up celeb who lied to cops,” called his charges excessive, and defended the decision to drop all charges.

Smollett was accused of orchestrating a homophobic, racist hate-crime attack against himself in late January, and filing a false police report. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the decision to drop charges “a whitewash of justice.”