In early February, a grand jury in Cook County, Illinois indicted Smollett, an actor and singer who once played Jamal Lyon in the Fox hip-hop drama series Empire, on six felony charges of disorderly conduct connected allegations that Smollett made four false reports to Chicago Police about a January 29, 2019 hate crime that prosecutors suspect he carried out against himself.

Smollett claimed that two men attacked him, poured bleach on him and placed a noose around his neck while saying, “This is MAGA country!” A security camera captured footage of two of Smollett’s associates, brothers Ola and Abel Osundario, carrying a rope and bleach during the night of the attack.

Though police arrested Smollett on February 21, 2019, on 16 counts of filing a false police report, Smollett pleaded “not guilty” and the charges were dismissed on March 28, 2019. The explanation for the dismissal remained publicly unknown as the court records behind the decision were sealed.

Afterward, Smollett was asked to commit to 15 hours of community service and forfeit his $10,000 bail bond as a repayment to the city for its investigation.

Because Smollett never faced trial over the original charges and he admitted no wrongdoing, Judge Linn said the six felony charges of disorderly conduct brought on February 2020 didn’t constitute double jeopardy.

“There was no trial in this case, there was no jury empaneled, no witnesses were sworn, no evidence was heard, no guilty pleas were ever entered … nothing like that ever happened,” Linn said during a Friday morning hearing streamed live on YouTube. “There was no adjudication of this case.”

Meanwhile, the Osundario brothers maintained that Smollett had paid them $3,500 in order to stage a fake hate crime. They said Smollett orchestrated the hoax in hopes of snagging a pay raise for himself as a lead actor in Empire. The brothers had appeared as extras on Empire, and were working as personal trainers. Smollett’s attorney says that Ola told Abel to attack Smollett to prove Abel wasn’t gay.

As a result of the negative press, Smollett’s character was written out of Empire’s final episodes in its closing seasons despite members of the cast supporting his return. His character’s mother explained that her son had “run off to Europe” as an explanation for his sudden disappearance.