Jussie Smollett begins jail sentence in protective custody

foxnews.com:

Jussie Smollett began a 150-day jail sentence for staging a hate crime against himself in protective custody, separated from other detainees and watched by security cameras and an officer, jail authorities said Friday.

Sheriff's deputies immediately took Smollett to the Cook County Jail Thursday night after Judge James Linn sentenced the Black and gay actor to 30 months of felony probation, starting with a five-month term in jail, for lying to police that he had been the target of a racist and homophobic attack.

Smollett loudly maintained his innocence and suggested he could be killed in jail. "Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this," Smollett said Thursday. "And I am not suicidal.

And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself." Actor Jussie Smollett speaks to Judge James Linn after his sentence is read at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Thursday, March 10, 2022, in Chicago.  (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool) Smollett's sentence may put an end — pending appeals — to more than three years of legal drama following the actor's report to police that two men wearing ski masks beat him and hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him on a dark Chicago street and ran off.