Jussie Smollett charged with 16 additional felony counts by an Illinois grand jury.

Jussie Smollett's mugshot. ABC News/Chicago PD.

Actor Jussie Smollett has been charged with 16 additional counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. ABC News. Each felony count has a maximum sentence of 4 years in prison so if Smollett is convicted on all counts he could face up to 64 years in prison. Smollett is accused of falsely accusing white President Trump supporters of attacking him for being a black gay man. However, investigators found that he paid two Nigerian men to stage the attack instead. The charges stem from both the initial report that Smollett made to police as well as during a 2nd follow up interview. 

My Comment:

Keep in mind there is likely an investigation still open on Smollett for the letter he likely sent himself that contained a white powder, which was ground up over the counter painkillers. Sending that through the mail will likely get the United States Postal Service's investigators involved and that could bring even more felony charges for Smollett. 

I'm a little conflicted about these new charges. On the one hand it's very true that Smollett did an absolutely terrible thing. He was essentially trying to invoke prejudice and raise racial tensions. It's only luck that his story was debunked quickly enough or we could have had riots or other kinds of reprisal attacks all due to him. 

That being said, filing 17 counts of filing a false police report seems like overcharging him. Even if they are going through each and every lie he made it seems a little ridiculous to charge him for each count. My guess is that prosecutors are overcharging him so he makes a deal and the whole thing will just go away. That's a typical tactic for prosecutors but in this case I'd rather avoid having Smollett take a deal. 

That being said, I am happy that they are throwing the book at Smollett. What he did can not stand and to their credit the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois is sending a clear message to other people who might try something like this. If you do you might spend the rest of your life in prison. 

Will that actually deter anyone? I am not sure. Most people that fake hate crimes like this are dumb enough to think they can get away with it. Even if you enforced the death penalty, for the sake of argument, you would still have a few that would try this. 

More importantly, the message is to the victims in this case. The authorities are pretty much telling Trump supporters and White males that they still have rights and that if someone goes out of their way to slander them they will be taken to task. It shows that justice isn't completely dead in this country and that sometimes the bad guy does get punished. It may even cool down the culture wars a bit if people realize that there actually are going to be consequences for the worst of the worst, so I view this as a very good thing.