I've Held My Tongue on Jussie Smollett Until Now ...

... for several reasons. I neither believed nor disbelieved his initial story until the narrative started to go south on him and he ended up charged with filing a false police report and such -- after which I just didn't find the whole thing especially interesting. Hate crime hoax stories are pretty common and the only thing distinguishing this alleged hate crime hoax story from most was that it involved an actor I'd never heard of who starred on a show I don't watch.

So now, the charges have been dismissed and the case has been sealed. Meanwhile, Smollett agreed to forfeit his bail and had apparently already done some community service.

I agree that that sounds pretty fishy, and of course it has a bunch of people -- including some Big Names -- upset. Here's the summary I'm hearing from commentators high and low:

"If you're rich and famous, the price of getting off for a felony offense in Chicago is ten grand."

And that just might be the case. But let me offer another possibility:

You haven't really got the goods. You've got a case, but not an airtight case. I'm not pleading. Want to roll the dice with a jury? Fine.

BUT!

Every cop involved, from the officers who initially responded to the scene, to the investigators who drummed up the false police report against me, to the police chief who decided to flap his yap about it in public, is going to go on the stand.

And each and every one of those cops is going to get grilled about each and every episode in his or her career where he or she was accused of false arrest of a black citizen, or of a gay citizen, or of disbelieving a black citizen's complaint or a gay citizen's complaint that turned out to be true.

Did any of those cops ever shoot a black "suspect" who turned out to be an innocent bystander?

Did any of those cops ever decide a domestic dispute wasn't as one-sided as the complainant claimed, tell everyone to calm down and leave, then have to come back a few hours later to process a murder scene?

By the time my lawyer gets done with those cops, the jury will believe they think every black citizen and gay citizen in Chicago is blowing smoke up their asses when a crime gets reported, and that they wouldn't recognize a real criminal if one snuck up behind them and whacked them across their asses with a bass fiddle.

Or you can keep that ten thousand dollars and let it go.

Your call.

Not saying that's how it went down, but I think it's at least as likely as "he's rich and famous, give him a pass."