Attorney calls for special prosecutor to investigate if Kim Foxx interfered in Jussie Smollett investigation
By Jason Meisner and Megan Crepeau
Chicago Tribune
April 4, 2019
A South Side attorney filed a petition Thursday asking for a special prosecutor to look into whether “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett should be re-charged with staging a hate crime as well as whether Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx or her subordinates interfered with the investigation.
The filing by Saani Mohammed, who until recently was an assistant state’s attorney in Foxx’s office, marked the first formal request that a special prosecutor be appointed since the bombshell decision last week to drop all charges against Smollett.
Saying Foxx’s handling of the case was “plagued with irregularity,” Mohammed’s 10-page petition asked that presiding Criminal Court Judge Leroy Martin Jr. appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Foxx “acted to impede the investigation … concealed evidence, and/or intentionally misled the public.”
The petition noted that no written agreement was entered in dropping the charges against Smollett and he was not required to admit any wrongdoing, allowing him to “perpetrate the same lie that formed the basis of the crime.”
“Indeed, Mr. Smollett now claims that the dismissal of the charges exonerates him and validates that he was not only the victim of a hate crime, but also that he was unjustly vilified and smeared by the Chicago police and the entire Cook County criminal justice system,” the petition said.
Mohammed also alleged that after communicating with a relative of Smollett and a “politically connected ally” of the actor’s family, Foxx improperly “used her position to intervene in the investigation” on his behalf. Even though Foxx acknowledged she stepped aside from the case because of the potential conflict, she failed to properly recuse herself and her office, he said.
“Not only was Foxx’s failure to recuse herself improper given that she admitted to having an actual conflict, Foxx has in essence ‘doubled down’ on her office’s decision not to prosecute Smollett and insists that her decision was consistent with prosecutorial discretion,” the petition said.
A spokeswoman for Foxx could not immediately be reached for comment.
In a brief telephone interview Thursday, Mohammed said he filed the petition because “there has to be a way for the public to know that there’s no separate justice system for different classes of people.”
Mohammed said he had served as a Cook County prosecutor from November 2014 until last month, when he left to start his own practice. He initially did not pay much attention to Smollett's charges, but comments on social media after last week's abrupt dismissal caught his eye, he said, so he began to dig into the facts of the hot-button case.
He said he hopes that a special prosecutor will re-file the dismissed charges and "go back and do it the right way."
"I just want to make sure that the right thing is done," he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And make damn sure that George Soros funded Kim Foxx is given the heave-ho!
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CITY ATTORNEY MOVING AGAINST JUSSIE SMOLLETT
by Bob Walsh
The Chicago city attorney is moving a civil action against Jussie Smollett to recover the $130,000 they say he cost them in investigating his bogus crime. Smollett is maintaining that the crime really occurred as he described and is refusing to pay up.
I strongly suspect that this may turn into an O J Simpson or Oscar Wilde moment for good old Jussie. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
2 comments:
I can't imagine that Kim Foxx will resign, and I can't imagine a SERIOUS investigation by local authorities. If the feds get involved it may be another story. Also, if the city pushes its civil case that may result in some fallout that makes it very hot for Ms. Foxx, but unless she chickens out for reasons yet unclear she is not going to leave voluntarily, or even semi-voluntarily.
I'll wager she ends up leaving for a better appointment.
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