Jussie Smollett, the actor accused of faking a homophobic attack on the streets of Chicago in 2019, was overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday, with a judge ruling that his second prosecution after the case had already been resolved was a violation of his right to a fair trial.

Smollett has attacked the case from all angles since the saga was relaunched six months after the charges were dropped, and on Thursday the court said in a 5-0 opinion, with two justices abstaining, that a second case against Smollett was moot with its fair trial. rights.

“We believe that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a violation of due process, and therefore we reverse the defendant’s conviction,” Rochford wrote in the opinion.

Smollett, who is black and gay, was a breakout star on the Fox TV series Empire when he claimed in January 2019 that he was attacked on the streets of Chicago by two black men who threw homophobic slurs at him and shouted “This is MAGA country” as he punched him and put a noose around his neck as he walked to his apartment walked . The two men, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, said they were ordered by Smollett to attack him and that the actor explained to the brothers how to do it. The two alleged attackers testified that Smollett fabricated the attack and paid them $3,500 for it. Smollett claims his accusations were not a hoax.

When Chicago detectives discovered this, the story became a sensation combining issues of race and homosexuality, celebrity and social media, coming at a time when Trump had come to the White House and the MAGA movement was being encouraged. Prosecutors ultimately offered to drop the charges if Smollett agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service.

Still, the public outcry was loud and loud, and because the prosecutor was accused of cronyism, a special prosecutor revived the case after it was dismissed. Prosecutors alleged that Smollett staged the attack because he was unhappy with a TV studio’s response to hate mail he received. Smollett was convicted by a grand jury of six counts of disorderly conduct for falsely reporting the fake attack to police; in November 2021 he was found guilty of five of the six counts. He served six days of a five-month prison sentence in 2022 before being released on appeal.

On Thursday, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth M. Rochford ruled that the special counsel’s case violated Smollett’s rights.

Nenye Uche, who led Smollett’s defense team, expressed gratitude for his client’s legal victory.

“This was not a prosecution based on facts, rather it was a vindictive prosecution, and such a proceeding has no place in our criminal justice system,” he said in a statement after the ruling. “In the end we are happy that Law’s reign was the big winner today. We are grateful to the Illinois Supreme Court for restoring order to Illinois criminal jurisprudence.”