new this morning actor Jesse Smollett is
now in custody he is facing a felony
disorderly conduct charge as we
mentioned at the top of the hour after
investigators say he lied about an
attack last month now he is due in court
later this afternoon the Empire star
told police back in January that he was
attacked by two men in downtown Chicago
he said they called him racial and
homophobic slurs threw bleach on him and
put a rope around his neck after
scouring financial and phone records
investigators now say they believe that
Smollett was involved in planning the
attack attorney the local defense
attorney run to people's waters is
joining us now to analyze what's next
for the star but if we could Rhonda
start with when you hear disorderly
conduct you think maybe somebody who is
misbehaving or or intoxicated is this a
different kind of law because it's in
Illinois than what we're accustomed to
here in Florida well in Florida we call
disorderly conduct we kind of relate it
to drinking alcohol and things like that
but here they have a list of things that
fall under there disorderly conduct
statute and one of them is obviously
causing the police or any public agency
to have to you know exhort their
resources and rely on your false
information so basically this is our
filing a false police report or
something in that realm but it's a
felony
normally we're accustomed to maybe a
misdemeanor third degree misdemeanor but
this is a felony it is a felony and is
punishable by up to three years in
prison he could face obviously paying
back restitution and I'm having to
complete up to a hundred hours of
community service hours okay so let's
look of course he's denying everything
his attorney came out with a statement
saying you know we are we're going to
conduct our own investigation put
yourself in the shoes of his defense
attorneys if you will for us since
that's your expertise looking at for
example we've got some video of the two
men who police interviewed who you know
Smollett had said attacked him and they
turned out to be you know loosely linked
to him one of them was a personal
trainer of his so there's this video of
them buying you know ski masks and
gloves in this store as a defense
attorney representing Smollett does this
video make you nervous well
actually in and of itself does not
I think amount to what people are saying
or thinking about it there must be
something more we don't see Jesse
Smollett here we don't see any evidence
that connects him but I believe that the
police are using this video to confirm
something that the brothers have already
told them and that's what this issue is
it's an issue of credibility and if
their story appears to be more credible
than Jesse's then that's why obviously
you see these charges coming forth
because at the end of the day and we
don't know about these financial records
and these phone calls but at the end of
the day could this really end up being a
he-said she-said or in this case he said
he said and you know it may not go well
for prosecutors if that's the case it
could but I believe that there is much
more that is left to be uncovered we
must know that or we should expect to
see maybe some additional video or
surveillance out of those bank records
are will it show that the money that
Jesse's Paulette small that may have
taken out of the bank matches the amount
that these brothers say that they were
given and then how do you explain those
amounts as well as one of the brothers
was his personal trainer so if these
persons are kidnapping you and saying
these things you know how is it that you
don't recognize the boy so those are the
things that I think will be forthcoming
yeah helping to sort of connect the dot
with everything that's going on here
he does have a prior four he does have a
prior for DUI and then giving a false
name in that incident that happened
years ago in 2007 so of course there's
that layer of you know you've previously
been in this situation but I believe
that there will be an issue of whether
there's any mental health issues anxiety
from a letter that he had gotten a week
before kind of threatening him and
there's some concern that that wasn't
alarming enough so he may have felt that
his safety was in jeopardy it'd be
interesting to see and we'll certainly
know because we'll follow the court case
later today
Rhonda people's waters thank you very
much for being here - appreciate it