Actor Jussie Smollett’s attorney has spoken out after his 2021 convictions for allegedly staging a hate crime were overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court this week.

Smollett was convicted of five counts of disorderly conduct, with each count representing an instance of reporting a false claim, for allegedly planning an elaborate fake hate crime against himself in 2019 in which two men allegedly attacked him with bleach and made racist and homophobic comments to him. and put a noose around his neck.

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, November 21, that charges filed against Smollett by a special prosecutor after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office dropped the charges constituted a violation of his rights.

In response, Smollett’s attorney Nenye Uche said in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE that he is “pleased” with the ruling.

“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,” Uche said. The statement added that the “rule of law was the big winner.”

Dan K. Webb, the special prosecutor appointed to Smollett’s case in 2019, said in a statement that he “respectfully disagrees” with Thursday’s ruling.

“Make no mistake: Today’s verdict has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence,” Webb said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.

The Illinois Supreme Court did not find any “error in the overwhelming evidence” presented at the trial that led to his guilty verdict, Webb said.

“In fact, Mr. Smollett did not even challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against him in his appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court,” the special counsel added.

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The Empire The actor has maintained his innocence and discussed the incident in an interview with PEOPLE in September.

“I was numb,” Smollett told PEOPLE. “I didn’t know how to connect the dots. I really, really didn’t know. I couldn’t understand what was going on, and I couldn’t understand what people were actually thinking… what exactly are they doing?” do they think happened? I couldn’t put two and two together.”