Kim Foxx Made False Statements Handling Smollett Case: Report

CHICAGO — Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx made "false and misleading statements" about her office's prosecution of actor Jussie Smollet and engaged in "substantial abuses of discretion," but she didn't break the law, according to special prosecutor Dan Webb.

Last year, Smollett, the former "Empire" actor, was accused of staging a racist, homophobic attack on himself. He was indicted on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct that were dropped by Foxx's office.

Webb's investigation found the "process and decision-making" of Foxx's office related to Smollett's prosecution amounted to a "substantial abuse of discretion and represented a major failure of the operations."

The detailed statement released Monday also found:

• Foxx's office engaged in "substantial abuse of discretion and breached its obligations of honesty and transparency by making false and/or misleading statements to the public" about why the charges were dismissed.
• Foxx's office made false statements and misled the public by claiming the State's Attorney had legally recused herself from Smollett's prosecution.
• Foxx engaged in a substantial abuse of discretion and breached its obligations of honesty and transparency by making false and/or misleading statements to the public that she stopped communicating with Jurnee Smollett, Mr. Smollett's sister, after the actor had become a subject of the investigation.

Webb's summary report determined that Foxx's claim that her office's deferred prosecution of charges against Smollett were similar to more than 5,000 other cases wasn't true.

“There were not thousands of (or, arguably any) similar cases that the [State's Attorney's Office] resolved in a similar way,” according to the news release.

The special prosecutor also found Foxx made false statements when she said that Smollett didn't have a criminal record and couldn't be fined more than the $10,000 he forfeited after the charges against him were dropped.

Webb determined Smollett did have a criminal record — convictions in California for misdemeanor driving under the influence, making false statements to police and driving without a license — and there is no limit on fines he could have faced under Illinois law.

Webb's investigation found there was evidence that could rise to the "level of a violation of legal ethics." But the report did not find evidence that Foxx was involved in decision-making about the case. The report also states that there was not evidence to pursue criminal charges against Foxx or anyone in her office.

The Cook County State's Attorney's Office released a statement Monday "categorically rejecting" Webb's assessments that Foxx made false statements to the public or the office abused its prosecutorial discretion.

"While the release does not say so, any implication that statements made by [Foxx and her office] were deliberately inaccurate is untrue," according to the statement.

As a result of the issues addressed in the press release, and of discussions of them beforehand, the [State's Attorney's Office] has already made a number of changes to its operations, including the hiring of a new ... ethics officer and more separation of their function from the administration of the office, and strengthening the recusal plan with clear guidelines and explicit definitions of conflicts of interest."

This is a developing story.

Read the summary report: