That's pretty much extortion, so way to play into your reputation, Chicago.
But seriously, this whole case is fucked, and the Chicago PD have a reputation for being poorly trained, with a pervasive cover-up culture, tolerance of racial discrimination and racist behavior, and are ten times more likely to use force on a black suspect than a white one. That's not something I'm saying, those are literally from a 2017 Department of Justice evaluation of the Chicago PD. Let's not forget that a few years ago, Chicago PD was busted for using abandoned buildings as "black sites" to illegally detain and interrogate suspects off the books.
It's pretty interesting that the city dropped all charges when the FBI said it would be looking into the case. A case where the Chicago PD said that two Nigerian men confessed to being hired by Jussie Smollett to stage an attack on him, but other sources say they confessed to being hired by Jussie Smollett as personal trainers.