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“I’m unwilling to recuse myself, because I don’t think legally there is any reason,” Martin said. “Because of tremendous amount of public interest in this case— and I am not unmindful that there are people in the public that believe my being on this case somehow taints the proceedings… I’m going to transfer the case.” Retired appeals court judge Sheila O’Brien’s request to have still another judge— one from outside Cook County— appointed to hear her case, and her petition for a special prosecutor, will remain unanswered until the next hearing in the case, set for May 17.

A hearing on a request for a special prosecutor in the Jussie Smollett case quickly switched its focus Thursday from the “Empire” actor to the judge on the bench. The proceedings grew unexpectedly heated when Sheila O’Brien, a retired appellate judge pushing for the special prosecutor, filed last-minute paperwork suggesting that Cook County Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. recuse himself from deciding the issue because his son has worked as a county prosecutor since last year. . . . Martin’s son, LeRoy III, who has been with the state’s attorney’s office since April 2018, works as a prosecutor in the juvenile...

CHICAGO (Fox 32 News) - A judge is set to decide Thursday whether a special prosecutor should investigate Kim Foxx's handling of the Jussie Smollett case, and we’ve now learned that the judge has a son who works in the state's attorney’s office. Judge Leroy Martin Junior is the presiding judge of the Cook County Court's Criminal Division. It's standard procedure for him to preside over the hearing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Foxx's handling of the Smollett case. But it turns out that Martin's son is a lawyer who works in the Juvenile Division of the state's...

“Has everybody had a good time tonight?” Obama asked the audience at a 2016 White House event. “… Jussie Smollett!” Smollett smiled and clapped, beaming with excitement. Who wouldn’t be beaming after performing for the president and the first lady? It was obvious that he was having good time. Clearly, he was becoming somebody. A real Hollywood somebody, star of the TV show “Empire” with important connections. Smollett became such a somebody that Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office inexplicably cut him loose from criminal charges, dropping 16 grand jury counts against him for allegedly fabricating a racial hate...

Jussie Smollett has gone West, young fans, and he has no intention of returning to Chicago for a new court hearing about whether a special prosecutor should be appointed to review how criminal charges against him were dismissed. That’s what his publicist Hilary Rosen is saying, according to the Associated Press, as Smollett’s attorneys file court papers to stop his being forced to appear in court in Chicago Thursday. In the court filing, Smollett’s lawyers said the actor, who just got kicked off his Empire TV show for the foreseeable future, got rid of his Chicago apartment due to security...

Domestic violence victims face risk of being attacked again following Cook County reforms, a Tribune investigation found. (Full). ... Cook County judges have sharply lowered bonds for people accused of violent domestic attacks and prosecutors are dropping more of these cases, placing victims at risk as potentially dangerous suspects are released from custody. ... Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle implemented the new measures with the support of State’s Attorney Kim Foxx ... Reform is being pursued at the expense of the victims. They have been left out of the conversation,” said Amanda Pyron, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan...

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office opposes appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the dismissal of charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett. Foxx had recused herself from the case after saying she communicated with a relative of Smollett’s in the early phases of the investigation but a filing by prosecutors Tuesday argued that Foxx did not have an actual conflict of interest. Prosecutors also echoed Smollett’s attorneys in arguing that the appointment is unnecessary, since the county inspector general’s office — at Foxx’s request — is already investigating the controversy.

Chicago's top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, has been subpoenaed to appear in court in relation to her handling of the Jussie Smollett case. The Cook County State's Attorney has been summoned by retired appellate judge Sheila O’Brien, who is pushing for a special prosecutor to investigate the case against the Empire actor, reported The Chicago-Sun Times. The Times reports that O'Brien has also requested that Foxx’s top deputy, Joseph Magats, appear at the hearing and produce documents from the original case to assure that they have not been “altered or destroyed and will not be destroyed throughout this case,” according to...

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and deputy Joseph Magats have both reportedly been subpoenaed in the ongoing investigation into the handling of the Jussie Smollett case. Foxx and Magats have been called to appear at a hearing and turn over related documents by retired appellate judge Sheila O’Brien, who is pushing for a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. **SNIP** Rather than appoint a special prosecutor, “Foxx misled the public into believing that Smollett’s case was handled like any other prosecution and without influence,” O’Brien wrote.

The Cook County state's attorney's office is a mess that voters might have anticipated in 2016 when Kim Foxx's credentials and ethics were challenged: she inflated her felony trial experience and sidestepped questions about her once-lapsed law license. [In] office she has not cited conflicts of interest in personal injury cases. [T]he issue of her credentials has been largely dismissed due to her rising celebrity. Her inexperience, poor judgment and misaligned sense of ethics -- not her race -- have led to the mistrust we endure today. The state's attorney's office is being mismanaged by a politician who touts reform...

As part of this years program real-life Chicago judges, attorneys, and prosecutors join a trio of actors to conduct Hamlet’s trial for murder. Guided by evidence from a real criminal case but completely unscripted, each performance/trial unfolds uniquely, as a jury selected from that night’s audience hears the case presented and exercises the power to convict or acquit. This year’s production will include Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. Fresh off her Jussie Smollett fiasco Foxx will play the part of a judge in the Hamlet trial.

On Thursday, eight Chicago police officers formally asked for a special prosecutor in the case of Jedidiah Brown, an activist who allegedly assaulted them. Brown appeared with Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx at a press conference regarding her handling of the Jussie Smollett case, and reportedly worked for her political campaign in 2015, yet Foxx's office is still overseeing the case against him. The officers are demanding a special prosecutor take over the case instead. This petition reveals the anti-police corruption and animus in Foxx's office. This animus is nothing new. Earlier this week, documents revealed that Foxx intervened...

Attorneys for Jussie Smollett don’t want a special prosecutor to investigate how the Cook County State’s attorney’s office handled the “Empire” actor’s criminal case. Smollett’s Los Angeles-based lawyers on Thursday filed a motion opposing former state Appellate Court Judge Sheila O’Brien’s request for a court-appointed special prosecutor to probe the abrupt dismissal last month of criminal charges against the actor for allegedly staging a fake hate crime attack near his Streeterville apartment. “The appointment of a special prosecutor would result in a duplication of effort at the expense of taxpayers,” the petition states. The petition states that a “judicial investigation”...

Two top staffers for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx are resigning following the office’s decision to drop 16 charges against actor Jussie Smollett, who is suspected of having staged a hate crime against himself. According to the Chicago Tribune, chief ethics officer April Perry and special prosecutor Mark Rotert, who leads the Conviction Integrity Unit, will step down on May 3. In a statement to HuffPost, Foxx praised Rotert for making the unit “a national model,” noting that during his tenure, “we have vacated the convictions of over 70 wrongfully convicted men and women.”

First Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Magats, the man who decided to drop 16 felony charges against Jussie Smollett, never had the legal authority to act in his boss Kim Foxx’s stead, internal agency correspondence shows. A trove of documents obtained by The Post and others through a public records request reveal that high ranking members of Foxx’s team sought advice on the legal authority behind her recusal after it was made public on Feb. 19. Alan Spellberg, the county’s Criminal Appeals Division Supervisor, sent an email to Chief Deputy State’s Attorney and Chief Ethics Officer April Perry and senior adviser...

CHICAGO – Two ranking executives inside the Cook County State’s Attorney's Office have submitted their resignations — including State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s chief ethics officer, April Perry, whom Foxx cited as the person who advised her to “recuse” herself from the Jussie Smollett case that has rocked the Chicago office, Fox News learned Thursday. Mark Rotert, the director of the office's Conviction Integrity Unit, has also submitted his resignation, according to a Foxx spokesperson. Perry and Rotert are scheduled to work their last days on the job in May. "While I feel lucky to have been able to spend the...

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx described “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett as a “washed up celeb who lied to cops” in texts messages released Tuesday by her office in response to a public-records request by the Chicago Tribune. Foxx compared Smollett’s case to her office’s pending indictments against R&B singer R. Kelly in text messages to Joseph Magats, her top assistant, on March 8, the paper reported “Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16 (counts),” she wrote. “… Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is not going to resign. She’s going to run. Last month, Foxx plunged into a white-hot controversy when her office dropped all charges against the actor Jussie Smollett, accused of staging a fake assault and claiming he was the victim of a hate crime. The venom leveled at Foxx is not about Jussie Smollett. It’s about taking down the first African American woman to serve as the county’s top prosecutor, and about her efforts to bring justice and equity to communities of color. Her law enforcement critics, mostly white men, say Foxx is soft...

Kim Foxx: I welcome this investigation and pledge my full cooperation and the cooperation of my office as [Inspector General] [Patrick] Blanchard conducts his review.

Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx played the race card to salvage what remains of her career after she inexplicably protected Jussie Smollett for playing the race card. What does Foxx keep after playing the race card? Her fake integrity? As many know, Foxx developed epic conflicts of interest for having private communications with the Smollett family and with Tina Tchen, the former chief of staff of Michelle Obama. The Kim Foxx saga is now half farce, half film noir, like an Elmore Leonard novel about Hollywood hustlers and race, with some Tom Wolfe thrown in. Foxx didn't go to just anybody...