Jussie Smollett is Victim of ‘Media Gangbang,’ Lawyer Tells Anderson Cooper

Hours after Empire actor Jussie Smollett was indicted by a Chicago grand jury on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report that he was the victim of a hate crime, his lawyer Mark Geragos told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper that Jussie Smollett was the victim of a “media gangbang” and “media lynching.”

In the indictment handed down Friday, the grand jury delivered two separate lists of charges. One related to what the actor told police officers about the attack; the other centered on his second interview with Chicago police. The indictment said that Smollett knew then that “there was no reasonable ground for believing that such offenses had been committed.”

Asked by Cooper if it is correct that Smollett—who was charged with filing a false police report last month—was charged separately for each alleged lie he told police, Geragos called it  “outrageous” for his client to have been charged so many times, especially since he “maintains his innocence” and that he was in fact the victim of a hate crime.

The attorney went on to claim that reports that Smollett was dissatisfied with his Empire pay and had been suspended from the show were both false, prompting him to blast the media at large for the way it has covered this story.

“What is happening here is, frankly, a media gangbang of this guy of unprecedented proportions,” Geragos exclaimed. ”That's the reason I got into this. I've never seen a media pendulum swing more quickly and more viciously and rob somebody of their presumption of innocence like this case has. It’s startling the way people assume he’s guilty.”

The attorney then asserted that the $3,500 check that Smollett allegedly gave two brothers to stage the hate crime assault was actually for physical training. When pressed by Cooper as to why the brothers would purposely attack Smollett while “using Trump language” and tying a noose around his neck if Smollett had hired them as trainers, the attorney attempted to flip the questions around.

“I haven't interviewed them, but I will ask you this, why is it that if they did this and they were in cahoots and if they went in front of a grand jury, why weren't they indicted?” Geragos declared. “Number two, the police chief is the one who says they waited until the 47th hour before all of a sudden they were visited and they changed their story. And they haven't been given an immunity. Why is that?”

The CNN anchor eventually ended the interview by noting how “weird” and “odd” this all seems if you try to take Jussie Smollett at his word about what happened.