Smollett may be in bigger trouble with the Feds

Smollett may be in bigger trouble for the threatening letter “sent” to him ostensibly by white supremacists. According to the Washington Post, Smollett’s recent fame was a three-step process:

1. He was unhappy with the amount 20th Century Fox paid him for his work on the Empire TV series.
2. In an attempt to pressure Fox to increase his pay, he sent a threatening letter with white powder to the Empire producers.
3. When that got little publicity, he staged the MAGA Country assault on 1/29/19.

The letter, which arrived at Empire on 1/22/19, used letters cut out of a magazine like a ransom note as its typeface. The white powder was crushed Tylenol, apparently an attempt to make it look like anthrax—a deadly poison—until analyzed.

“The letter, it had a stick figure hanging from a tree with a gun pointing toward it with the words that says, Smollett Jussie, you will die,” Smollett said, adding that there was a racial slur.

The Nigerian brothers Smollett hired to stage the assault told Chicago police that Smollett sent the threatening letter to Empire. The search warrant for Smollett’s home cited a “magazine on a bird cage.” The implication is that is the magazine from which the letters were cut. 

Is it illegal to be so stupid that you keep a magazine you used to get the type for a letter you told police was sent by someone other than you? That you paid your co-conspirators by check? That you had your co-conspirators buy all the props at the same time and place right before the “crime” in a store with a security camera recording the transaction. I suspect it might be prudent to buy them long before the crime so the pertinent tapes would be erased—maybe having only one brother make the purchase, or a fourth party.
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Empire has announced that Smollett’s role in that show will be scaled down.”“ “Scaled down?” To zero? This whole thing was an attempt to defraud Empire. If he was white, he would have been fired summarily. Fox is dancing to avoid offending blacks or gays. Moral wimps, double standard, yadda yadda, the whole nine yards of leftist PC everything.

Smollett may have to reimburse the City of Chicago for the investigation work to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The FBI investigation may turn up mail fraud 18 USC §1341:

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, or to sell, dispose of, loan, exchange, alter, give away, distribute, supply, or furnish or procure for unlawful use any counterfeit or spurious coin, obligation, security, or other article, or anything represented to be or intimated or held out to be such counterfeit or spurious article, for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice or attempting so to do, places in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service, or deposits or causes to be deposited any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier, or takes or receives therefrom, any such matter or thing, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail or such carrier according to the direction thereon, or at the place at which it is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is addressed, any such matter or thing, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation occurs in relation to, or involving any benefit authorized, transported, transmitted, transferred, disbursed, or paid in connection with, a Presidential declared major disaster or emergency (as those terms are defined in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122)), or affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

There is also 18 U.S. Code § 876. Mailing threatening communications

(a) Whoever knowingly deposits in any post office or authorized depository for mail matter, to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service or knowingly causes to be delivered by the Postal Service according to the direction thereon, any communication, with or without a name or designating mark subscribed thereto, addressed to any other person, and containing any demand or request for ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(b) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value, so deposits, or causes to be delivered, as aforesaid, any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(c) Whoever knowingly so deposits or causes to be delivered as aforesaid, any communication with or without a name or designating mark subscribed thereto, addressed to any other person and containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. If such a communication is addressed to a United States judge, a Federal law enforcement officer, or an official who is covered by section 1114, the individual shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(d) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person any money or other thing of value, knowingly so deposits or causes to be delivered, as aforesaid, any communication, with or without a name or designating mark subscribed thereto, addressed to any other person and containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another, or the reputation of a deceased person, or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. If such a communication is addressed to a United States judge, a Federal law enforcement officer, or an official who is covered by section 1114, the individual shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
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There are also many laws against making “terroristic” threats.

18 USC §1001 is a federal law against making false statements to federal authorities.

There is no parole in federal prisons. https://www.nolo.com/legal-en…/is-federal-parole-system.html

Why Chicago? Smollett is from there. Empire is taped there.