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E-mails between Jussie Smollett's lawyers and senior officials of the Cook County State Lawyer's Office, Kim Foxx, began stealing the same day the Empire's actor was brought to justice for sensational charges accusing him of having simulated a racist and homophobic attack.
The correspondence continued for weeks and was increasingly frequent in the days leading up to the prosecutor's stunning decision on March 26 to terminate the indictment on 16 counts against Smollett.
What has been said in these crucial discussions, however, remains a mystery. The emails were part of the mass of documents exempted from publication by the Foxx office in response to requests for public documents relating to the Smollett case presented by the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets.
On Tuesday evening, the State Attorney's Office threw out thousands of pages of relatively unimportant emails and text messages, most of which indicated that Foxx's public relations office was struggling to cope with the international storm of fire. by the sudden end of the affair.
The limited publication of documents leaves the public largely unclear as to how the agreement to remove the charges was concluded. This will probably do nothing to lessen the controversy surrounding Foxx's handling of the lawsuits, which has been hotly criticized by jurists and calls for his resignation from several local pro-police organizations.
In fact, some of the e-mails that have been published raise even more questions. An internal memo sent on Feb. 20 by a senior Foxx aide, for example, said the state prosecutor had probably violated his authority when she withdrew from Smollett's file because of a conflict. Instead of asking for the appointment of a special attorney, Foxx entrusted decision-making to a senior office official, the memo said.
In addition to emails with Smollett's legal team, the state attorney's office drafted text messages between Foxx and his senior assistant, Joseph Magats, who were sent after she had so-called recuse, according to an "exemption newspaper" included in Tuesday night's release. .
Correspondence between prosecutors and detectives investigating Smollett's allegations has not been made public either. Foxx's e-mails and a lawyer representing two brothers who claimed that Smollett had paid them to lead the attack were also not exchanged.
Other text message channels between Foxx and its leading advisers – who named their "Foxxhole" mail group – were heavily redacted. Requests from the Tribune for internal office files were rejected.
Smollett, who is African-American and openly gay, has attracted worldwide attention after being the victim of a Jan. 29 attack in the Streeterville neighborhood by two people who shouted insults, l & # 39; They hit him and put his head around his neck.
The police initially considered the incident as a hate crime, but they focused on Smollett after the brothers proved his attackers telling investigators that Smollett had paid them $ 3,500 for organize the attack, with a promise of 500 additional dollars thereafter.
The decision to abandon the prosecution – which blinded police officials and even Mayor Rahm Emanuel – sparked sharp criticism. Emanuel's administration filed a lawsuit to try to force Smollett to reimburse Chicago for over $ 130,000 in police overtime to investigate the alleged hoax, although the charges were dropped. .
Editorial: Kim Foxx's office and the truth. All the truth. Under oath. "
Foxx had to face pressure to explain in more detail why the pursuit of Smollett had been abandoned so quickly. In a Tribune editorial, she dismissed the initial position of her office that the case was solid, writing that they were not certain of a conviction, but she was not sure. gave no details.
At his request, Patrick Blanchard, Inspector General of Cook County, agreed last week to conduct an investigation into the Smollett case's handling by the office.
Although many have been concealed, the thousands of SMS and e-mails published Tuesday night showed that the office was largely unprepared for the massive media reaction to its own overthrow. The texts between senior prosecutors and his communications office show that it is difficult to coordinate their messages and are unnecessarily trying to calm the heated controversy.
"I would have liked to be able to anticipate the magnitude of this answer and plan a little better!" Deputy Attorney General Risa Lanier, the chief prosecutor in this high-profile case, sent a text message to Magats hours after the charges were dropped.
"There is really no planning for that," Magats replied. "It's the right decision."
"I agree and I absolutely support the decision," said Lanier.
The records also showed that even though she had stepped away from the case, Foxx was aware of the developments. After being indicted in early March for 16 charges for disorderly behavior, she told Magats that Smollett was a "washed-up star who had lied to the cops" and that the number of counts to which he was facing was excessive.
"Sooo …… I'm challenged, but when people accuse us of overloading business … 16 accounts for class 4 (crime) becomes Exhibit A," Foxx writes, comparing Smollett's case to Charging case in the office of the R & B singer, R. Kelly, has been charged with aggravated sexual abuse. "Pedophile with 4 victims, 10 counts of indictment … washed up celebrity who lied to cops, 16 (counts) .It is not because we can charge something we should make. "
Foxx first withdrew from the file and appointed Magats, the first state's deputy attorney, on February 13, after disclosing that she had been in contact with one of the Smollett close to the beginning of the investigation.
On February 20, the day after the Foxx office had informed the media that she had stepped away from the case, Alan Spellberg, supervisor at the appeals division of the prosecutor's office State, had sent a four-page memo explaining why his challenge had taken place. his point of view, against the case law, according to the files published Tuesday.
Spellberg stated that state law and superior court rulings showed that even though Foxx had "total discretion" to recuse himself for some reason, "she can not just order someone else to (even the first assistant) to act in his place ".
Here are some excerpts from Kim Foxx's text messages on the Jussie Smollett case ยป
The memo could help explain Foxx's back office, which has since indicated that it had only retreated informally, as a challenge would have forced all of its office to withdraw and to request the appointment of a special prosecutor.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Foxx said that she had "made contact" with Magats after the publication of the "indictment" to discuss the review of the office 's policies in order to ensure that the company' s policies are in place. to ensure the consistency of our accusations and our use of proper indictment powers ".
But it is unclear what, if anything, Foxx's involvement in the Smollett affair was in concluding the agreement to put an end to the charges.
The state attorney's office also drafted portions of SMS conversations between Foxx and Magats starting Feb. 27, two weeks after it was reportedly withdrawn from any case.
Foxx and Magats exchanged texts on March 8, the day Smollett was brought before the Leighton Criminal Court, as indicated by the list of exemptions. That day, two texts from Magats to Foxx can not be published because they are subject to the sealing order of the record, according to the list of exemptions.
Smollett's lawyers told The Tribune that Foxx's attorneys contacted them for the first time after the March 8 hearing, asking what could be done to remove the case.
On March 26, the day the charges were withdrawn, Foxx and Magats sent text messages back and forth, several times, according to the archives. A text from Foxx to Magats is almost entirely written.
The state attorney's office said the message was not to be disclosed under the "deliberative process" clause of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act – which provides for an exemption for "preliminary drafts notes, recommendations, memos and other documents in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated. "
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