A judge blocked the request of actor Jussie Smollett to throw out Chicago’s $130,000 lawsuit against the actor Tuesday.
The city of Chicago originally sued Smollett to recover the $130,106 used to investigate the actor’s claim that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, according to a report published by the Chicago Sun-Times.
JUST IN: A federal judge just ruled the city of Chicago’s lawsuit can go forward against #JussieSmollett seeking reimbursement from the former “Empire” actor for police overtime in the investigation of his allegedly staged attack in January.
— Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b) October 22, 2019
“This will be going forward,” U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said during the hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Lawyers predict a short trial could happen as soon as summer of 2020. (RELATED: Jussie Smollett Files Motion To Toss Out Chicago’s $130,000 Lawsuit Against Him)
The city of Chicago filed the lawsuit in April, and Smollett filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in August.
Smollett argued that since the charges against him were dropped by prosecutors, the lawsuit should have been dropped as well.
The actor claimed the lawsuit “appears to be an unprecedented effort to seek penalties and resources expended in connection with allegedly false statements made to the police where the related criminal case concerning the statements was dismissed nolle pros on all counts.”
As previously reported, Smollett was originally accused of falsely reporting a hate crime to the Chicago police back in January of 2019. The charges were later dropped at the end of March, but the city of Chicago sued Smollett for what they calculated in overtime pay from investigating the allegedly false claims.