On Tuesday, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office dropped all charges against Jussie Smollett, according to the actor’s lawyers. Smollett had been arrested on disorderly conduct charges for an allegedly staged attack that he said was a hate crime.

"Today, all criminal charges against Jussie Smollett were dropped and his record has been wiped clean of the filing of this tragic complaint against him," Smollett’s lawyers said in a statement. "Jussie was attacked by two people he was unable to identify on January 29th."

CNN reported that Smollett was called into a Chicago courthouse on Tuesday morning for an emergency hearing. NBC News reported that after the charges dropped, records of the case were sealed and the case was expunged from Smollet’s record.

"He was a victim who was vilified and made to appear as a perpetrator as a result of false and inappropriate remarks made to the public, causing an inappropriate rush to judgment," attorneys Tina Glandian and Patricia Brown Holmes’s statement continued.

FOX, the channel that broadcasts the TV show Empire that Smollett stars in, declined to comment:

The producers of the show had removed Smollett from the final two episodes of the season.

More to come…

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