(Hot Air)—It’s hard to believe it has been six years since the Smollett hoax, but it was Jan. 29, 2019 when it happened. Today, Smollett agreed to settle a civil suit with the city by paying $50,000 to the local charity of his choice.
Last month, federal court records revealed the city and Smollett had reached a settlement agreement, but terms of the deal were not made public until Thursday, when the city’s Law Department confirmed Smollett has agreed to make a $50,000 charitable donation in exchange for dismissing the lawsuit. Smollett will make the donation to Building Brighter Futures Center for the Arts, a local organization that provides community, health, and education opportunities for Chicago’s underprivileged youth.
“The City believes this settlement provides a fair, constructive, and conclusive resolution, allowing all the parties to close this six-year-old chapter and move forward,” a Law Department spokesperson said.
I’m sure most readers remember some of the details of the hoax. Smollett claimed two white men in red caps had assaulted in the middle of a freezing night after he went out for a sandwich at Subway. The shouted “This is MAGA country!” during the alleged assault. Smollett claimed to have fought them off and then called the police.
When police arrived at his apartment he still had a kind of noose around his neck that he said one of the assailants had placed there. He also claimed to have been sprinkled with an “unknown chemical substance,” possibly bleach.
None of his story made sense. MAGA does not rule the streets of Chicago and even if they did they wouldn’t likely be out at 2 am looking for victims on a night when the city was in the midst of a polar vortex that made it colder than the surface of Mars.
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